


To Covet, To Keep

by okkaaaaayyy



Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Adopted Sibling Relationship, Found Family, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, Orphans, Serious Injuries, Sick Character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-19
Updated: 2021-02-19
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:08:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 21,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25984150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/okkaaaaayyy/pseuds/okkaaaaayyy
Summary: Techno had been alone for as long as he could remember, surviving by picking up odd jobs in towns that never felt like home. He was better off that way, not relying on anyone and not being relied on in return. . . At least he thought he was better off, until a very persistent trio of brothers decide to change his mind.
Relationships: Family dynamics - Relationship, No Romantic Relationship(s), Technoblade & Phil Watson, Technoblade & TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Technoblade & Wilbur Soot, TommyInnit & Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Wilbur Soot & Phil Watson, Wilbur Soot & Technoblade & TommyInnit & Phil Watson, Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit
Comments: 323
Kudos: 1629





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Techno socially interacts for the first time in three years.

There was a boy talking to Techno. 

A little kid with curly blonde hair that spilled over his ears and around his neck, and the biggest, bluest eyes Techno had ever seen. He was small and wiry, shorter than Techno, but not skinny in a way that suggested malnourishment. In fact, there was a healthy glow to his skin, his round cheeks pink and puffing up as he took another short breath in between what seemed like a never ending spew of words. 

The kid liked to talk, clearly, Techno thought dryly. About what, he wasn’t quite sure; he had tuned out a while ago, lost in thought as he stared at the kid’s wildly gesturing arms. Tommy was his name, or at least that was one of things Techno had managed to pick up before he stopped bothering to listen at all. He was _still_ talking, shrill and heavily accented, shaped in a way that was similar to the voices of most of the people from around there, even though he must have known that Techno could care less - he didn’t think he’d blinked within the last five minutes. 

Tommy had approached him as he was sitting under his favorite tree, just on the edge of the bustle of town, resting his eyes and his sore arms just a little before night struck and he would have to go back to actually working. He had been trying to get warm, rather unsuccessfully; he had never fared well in the colder climates of the north, and always found himself missing the warmth of southern winters. 

He had jolted up from his half sleep when he heard a shuffling from next to him, and had opened his eyes to see the little blonde kid grabbing at the hilt of his sword, which had been haphazardly stored in his bag. There had been a certain look of awe on Tommy’s face, gasping at the rusty iron like it was the most amazing thing he’d ever seen. 

“Hey!” Techno had snapped, because thieves were common in every place on the globe and he hadn’t had the chance to take in how clean and decidedly not thief-looking Tommy was. Besides, if the kid tried to lift the sword he’d probably end up decapitating himself somehow, and Techno really didn’t want to see that. 

“What!” Tommy had snapped back, clearly trying to cover up surprise with his barking tone (his eyes gave him away, wide and just a little scared). “Can’t a man just admire a fine blade when he sees one? I know my way around a sword, I’ll have you know!” The bravado and challenging tone surprised Techno, and he narrowed his eyes before huffing. 

“I’d hardly call you a man; what are you, like ten?” He had reached out and took the sword from Tommy’s hands before someone lost a finger, or before the kid ran off with it (even if he did, Techno was sure he could catch him; the sword probably weighed half of what the kid did). 

_“Actually,_ I’m eleven, so fuck you!”

A startled laugh forced its way out of Techno’s throat, more of a bark than anything. The sound scraped on the way up, but Tommy’s face had lit up with something happy, mixed in with the clear offense he felt at being laughed at. 

“I’m Tommy,” he had said, after punching Techno’s arm, not exactly lightly. 

“Well, I’m Techno,” he mumbled back, glaring when Tommy had snickered. It was always such a pain introducing himself. 

_“Techno?_ What kind of a name is that?” He snorted, and this time Techno punched him, as lightly as he could. 

“My name,” he grumbled, and Tommy kept laughing at him. 

And then he had started talking, and he had not stopped since. Techno had stopped listening when the kid had started talking about school, of all things, or something about how his older brother was teaching him how to read. . .? 

_“Hey!_ Are you even listening?” Tommy demanded, waving a hand too close to his face for comfort.

“No,” he deadpanned, “I stopped listening, like, five minutes after you opened your mouth.” 

He couldn’t help the small grin that slipped onto his face as the younger boy sputtered in abject rage before cursing him out. There was something so funny about the vile words that escaped the eleven year old’s lips. 

Completely ignoring Tommy’s rant, he looked up at the darkening sky and heaved himself up with a sigh. “I’ve gotta go, kid; there’s some zombies with my name on them out there.”

Tommy jumped up, all excited again, eyes flickering down the sword Techno held in his hand. “You’re gonna fight monsters?” There were stars in his eyes. Techno smiled again, just a little. 

“Gotta get paid somehow,” he said, as he walked away from the tree towards the outskirts of the town, where the patrol was waiting. They would leave without him if he didn’t hurry, and then he would have to go hungry. The meager pay really wasn’t much of anything, but it was enough to buy a hot meal, and that was enough for Techno. “See ya,” he yelled back at Tommy, who was waving at him excitedly. Techno couldn’t make out his face in the dark, and then he was gone entirely, running off into the innards of town, where the dim street lights illuminated the cobbled pavement. 

He figured that was the end of it, as he absentmindedly turned his sword back and forth in front of him, catching the light. After all, he really doubted Tommy would bother talking to him again, as stellar a conversationalist he had proved himself to be. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Techno begrudgingly befriends a gremlin.

Techno had been wrong. 

Which was to say, Tommy did, in fact, bother talking to him again, and frequently, at that. 

The boy had come bounding up to him the next day, bright eyed and basically vibrating with energy. “Did you fight monsters? How many did you kill? Oooohhhh did anyone get hurt? Was there blood and stuff? Were the-”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, shut up,” Techno had interrupted, blinking at the sudden onslaught of questions. Tommy had immediately puffed up, and Techno hadn’t bothered to stop himself from snorting.. The kid was like a little dog, yapping at something much larger than itself. “Yes there were monsters, I don’t know, and no, no one got hurt.” He had paused for dramatic effect, then, dryly: “This time.” 

“Ohhhhh, scary,” Tommy had grinned, sitting down besides him. “Well!” He had announced, clapping his hands twice, “If you’re not going to tell me about your epic fights or whatever -although I doubt they were _that_ cool, honestly, I’ll just have to tell you about my own battles and whatnot. Like the time I single handedly took out, like, ten whole zombies!” He had bragged, posing dramatically and puffing out his chest to make himself look larger than he actually was. 

Techno had just smirked at the display, raising a single eyebrow. “Oh? Then do enlighten me.” 

Tommy had burst excitedly into a story that was clearly either entirely made up or over exaggerated to the point where it might as well have been. Or, at least, Techno was willing to bet his own left leg that the kid had not juggled two swords at once and somehow managed to decapitate several zombies in the process. 

“That’s so overpowered, Tommy. You should teach me how to do that,” he had taken out his own sword and mimed throwing it up in the air, just to see the panicked look on the kid’s face for a split second. 

“Oh you dick! It can only be done by true professionals, so I wouldn’t even try if I were you. I don’t think I could even begin to teach someone as bad as you, anyway.” 

“Uh huh, if you say so,” he had made a show of being dejected, putting the sword down with an overblown sigh. “I’ll just have to dream of being as good as you, I guess.” 

“Hell right,” Tommy had bullied him, and had continued talking at him until the sky turned golden and purple on the horizon. 

And then he had kept doing it, until suddenly Techno found himself expecting the other boy on the days where he ventured to the tree. At first, he had been kind of annoyed by the new intruder; Tommy wasn’t exactly what he imagined when he thought ‘ideal new friend,’ considering he was eleven and kind of annoying because of it (or maybe that was just his personality, but either way, it could grate on the nerves). He missed the peace of knowing no one at all, when he could just sleep all day and exist without speaking to anyone for weeks on end. He really wasn’t a fan of being extremely social; it just made him anxious more often than not. 

In fact, he even went to certain lengths to avoid Tommy after realizing the boy didn’t mean to leave him alone after a few scattered interactions. He didn’t go up to his normal tree at all, instead walking around town or just not leaving his alleyway nest all day. He stayed inside the small clump of tattered blankets strewn about the cold, hard pavement, and pretended nothing was amiss and that he wasn’t missing the comparatively fresh air of anywhere else in town. On those days, he caught up on sleep. 

When it became abundantly clear that Tommy was going to become a more or less permanent fixture, Techno stopped bothering to hide all day and instead opted to doze as the boy spoke. He got used to Tommy only somewhat unwillingly; he had to admit, the kid had a charm that grew on a person, inexplicably. 

It was strange to have a sort of. . . friend, again. He had had them back at home, albeit never picked from the best pools of kids, and never really anyone who cared too deeply about him. They had been people to talk to, to escape to when he felt stifled by his parents, people to joke around and laugh with. Tommy was like that, in a way, but younger and softer than anyone he had known back home. The nuances of getting to know someone were unfamiliar and scary in their own right, something he hadn’t had to bother with for years of being mostly alone, although, to be fair, Tommy made it easier than most people. 

Tommy talked enough that Techno picked up things about him even just half-listening. For instance, he learned very quickly that Tommy had two brothers, neither of them blood related and both of them very much older than him. He talked about Wilbur like he was the spawn of Satan, always complaining about how the older boy had bullied him or was hanging out with his “old ass” friends. From more passive rants, Techno learned that Wilbur was seventeen and unfairly tall, and, apparently, good at music and stuff, as vague as that was. Phil was the other brother in question; he was twenty three, owned a bookstore in town, and was very nice, according to Tommy, who talked about him less but always in a less enraged tone of voice. 

It often made Techno think of his own brother, tall and strong and always incredibly out of reach. He always had a way of making Techno feel small, even unintentionally, and they weren’t ever close the way Tommy seemed to be with his own siblings (even though he complained, Techno could tell he was only complaining in a way that was superficial and small). He doubted the older boy even really cared when he had left; it wasn’t like his life changed much without Techno around, always underfoot. He made it a point to never think about it for very long. 

The boy also talked a lot about reading, which he was only just learning how to do. Wilbur and Phil were teaching him, and he would often bring small books to read aloud from, stumbling over words and squinting at the yellowed pages. He’d never ask for help, only skipping over the words he got stuck on, probably embarrassed, and would often demand praise, stupid cocky grin flashing. Techno hated that it had become more endearing than annoying by that point, in the same way it made him just a little happy. Either way, he was glad the boy had too much pride to ask about the scribbles on the pages, since Techno himself really had no idea how to read; it hadn’t been a priority of his family’s to bother with much education at all, and he didn’t think _his_ pride could handle being bested by an eleven year old in something so basic. 

Other things Techno picked up just from looking at Tommy, watching him as he pranced around and boldly orated stories that only could sound true to an audience under the age of ten, but filled with enough bravado that they almost felt like they could’ve happened anyway. He could tell Tommy had been like him, at one point, living on the streets, could read the way he held himself, always defensive, always moving (Techno was the opposite in that he was incredibly still, but there were always opposing strategies; it was hard to notice a target that drew no attention to itself in the same way it was hard to hit a target that was zipping back and forth like a little hummingbird), and in the way his eyes darted back and forth, sizing people up as they passed by, always looking for a threats and escape routes. There was the way the boy clung to food when he brought it with him, almost subconsciously, hunched over small snacks (from Phil, Tommy always explained with a tiny blush, voice laced in poorly veiled embarrassment) even as he offered to share them with Techno.

It was probably the reason Tommy never seemed to care about how grimy and malnourished Techno always looked - or, at least, the reason he never brought it up, something Techno was always grateful for. In a way, he thought, maybe they were more similar than he would’ve given Tommy credit for, and maybe (just a little) he was starting to lean into the whole new friend thing a little more than he had originally planned to. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'ALL I LITERALLY,,, had a conniption over the word "whoa." I had been spelling it as "woah" but I got spellchecked in ao3's typing box so I googled it and apparently I've been spelling whoa incorrectly my entire life?? And now I keep looking at "woah" and hearing it like Noah, but with a W. It's been a day and a half; please tell me I'm not the only one who spells whoa the wrong way lmao


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Techno is ambushed by an unexpected social interaction.

The sky around him was dark and suffocating in its blackness, pressing in around him and making air come in shallow and fast to his lungs. The only really visible areas around them were the islands of light radiating from torches gripped in sweaty palms, and the circle of orange glow surrounding the buildings of the nearby town. He could just make out little slices of light from houses where someone was up late working, and the dimness of the street lights in their neat, parallel rows. 

The clouds in the sky covered any stars, although they usually scattered across the night sky in a brilliant display of beauty, like a face flecked with thousands of freckles. The moon barely peeked out from behind the cover, only a tiny silver shining through.

There was a man panting to his left, another shouting to his right, more in front of him and in back of him, fighting through a particularly large group of monsters. The rattle of bones sounded from every direction, groans and hissing and the shrieks of spiders following in suit. He yanked his sword up from where it was sunk heavy into the flesh of a felled zombie, feeling a wave of exhaustion hit him very suddenly, throwing him off balance and almost knocking him over. 

Ignoring it, he turned back into the fray, entering back into the combat as seamlessly as he could; it was important to help the others, but also to stay out of their way. Sometimes it was hard finding a place to fit within the troupe of men that already knew each other and knew the ways they worked best together; he was still new and young, looked down on by the group even as they readily accepted his help. The border patrol was something that always needed extra men, even if they happened to be fourteen and scrawny. 

Putting most of his weight into it, he slashed at a zombie rearing up to claw at one of the older men, taking it to the ground with the swing that nearly cut the thing in half. The man grunted his thanks as he focused on the rest of the surrounding monsters, leaving Techno to once again pry his sword out of the twitching corpse. That was what he played best at, at least within the small group of tight knit defenders, backing them up where he could, and certainly never taking charge of any attacks. It wasn’t worth it to leap into the forefront of battle, especially when he got paid the same regardless. 

A large part of him protested at playing the safe route so blatantly, not even _trying_ to do something bold and dangerous and _fun._ It’s what he would’ve done back home, in the fighting games he’d played as a child, always on the offensive, snarling and smirking and so proud of himself. He had always been good at combat, but, then again, he guessed that wasn’t anything spectacular when half the village was better at it than he was. 

But, it was better to be alive and just a little shameful than it was to be full of pride and dead as a doornail. So, he sucked it up, went back to playing support, and slunk back to his alley in the morning, a couple of coins clinking quietly inside his pocket. He would sleep for a couple hours, as the sun inched over the tops of buildings, sheltered from the wind by the walls around him. He’d buy a meal with the money and then decidedly not think about food until the next time he was eating, lest he start to feel the worst of the gnawing in his stomach. He’d meet up with Tommy and laugh just a little, exhale out of his nose and feel that strange neighbor to happiness that always welled up inside his chest when talking to the boy. 

Yes, he thought, it was certainly better to be alive than the alternative.

*****

The day that Techno met Wilbur had been a good one. 

The night’s work had been easy, a strange quiet occasion where they really only saw about ten monsters in total. The troupe had been jovial and had given him an extra coin just because of their good spirits, and he had clutched the little thing in his hand with half a smile on his face the entire way back into town. 

He had even slept well, and, when he got up in the early afternoon, he had eaten well too. When he approached the tree, Tommy was already there, tapping his foot impatiently, arms crossed, gesturing wildly at someone else. The someone else was a boy sitting next to Tommy, looking bored. Techno slowed to a halt, squinting at the scene before him; Tommy hadn’t told him about bringing anyone else with him, and the spike of nerves that accompanied the thought was sudden and sharp. 

Sucking it up with a big breath of air, he walked forward slowly, waving at the younger boy to get his attention. 

_“Finally!”_ Tommy exclaimed, as the other boy perked up. 

“I slept in,” he told Tommy, unapologetically, ignoring the way the boy rolled his eyes. 

“You just had to do it today, didn’t you?” He groaned dramatically. The boy next to him stood up with a pop of joints, and Techno found himself craning his neck to even see the dude’s face. He was probably the tallest person Techno had ever met, all thin bones and sharp angles, contrasting with a soft looking face and curly brown hair swooping down over his face. Somehow, he immediately knew that it had to be Wilbur, from Tommy’s description of him. 

Truthfully, he had seen glimpses of the other boy before, because sometimes he came and fetched Tommy if they needed him back at home, or if he was in trouble and wasn’t supposed to be out. It was glimpses of him or a shorter blonde man, who always smiled at him earnestly, even as he dragged Tommy away by the ear. Wilbur had always waved awkwardly at him, but they’d never been introduced. 

Wilbur smiled down at him, looking vaguely uncomfortable. “I’m Wilbur,” he confirmed in his voice which sounded just like Tommy’s in accent, if not lighter. It certainly didn’t have the same grating quality Tommy’s could take on, and almost sounded musical in the way it curled around his words. 

“Techno,” he greeted, and suddenly felt horribly insecure all at once. He wasn’t quite sure why, because he had never cared about what other people had thought of him before, and he had never cared about what Tommy thought of him, but there was something that felt strange about standing in front of someone older than him but not by much, who was cleaner and healthier and leagues more put together than he had been in years. He was filled with the strong urge to hide completely, or rip off his skin or something, just so no one would have to see him. 

Instead, he smiled a little fake smile that stretched the skin on his face, which felt like paper, thin and revealing.

“Wilbur decided to come along today because he missed me so much, obviously, as I am the greatest, bestest, most amazing brother on the planet!” Tommy declared, and Wilbur snorted. 

“Phil made me go out with him,” he told Techno, with a smug smile tugging on his lips, whispering it like it was some secret. Tommy gasped with rage beside him, huffing and shoving his shoulder. 

“Phil made you go so you can learn from my epic example, obviously.”

“Obviously,” Techno said dryly. Wilbur laughed a little and Tommy glared at them both. 

To his relief, conversation wasn’t very difficult with Wilbur there. Nothing changed much, except that he suddenly had a partner to bully Tommy with., and new topics of conversation that weren’t stories conjured from the eleven year old’s head. Wilbur laughed a lot, a kind of soft, musical sound, and smiled even more. He liked to ruffle Tommy’s hair, and sat with all his long limbs folded up in weird arrangements. He liked to talk about his friends, of which he had a lot (“There’s David, Charlie, George, Matt, Rhiana, Dan, and Jack,” he counted off on his fingers, “and then there’s a completely different gang that I see sometimes - they even have a little group name.” Tommy had wrinkled his nose at that. “Nobody cares about your little Breakfast Bunch, Wilbur!” He had scoffed, and Wilbur had smacked him upside the head.), and he liked to make up little tunes and hum half formed songs. 

When Tommy had run off to go get something or another (he was always showing off something, scrambling back and forth in a whirlwind of limbs), Wilbur had sobered up just a little. “Thanks for looking after him; I know he can be a handful,” he said, quietly, and Techno had snorted. 

“I hardly look after him, he basically just does whatever he wants with me watching,” he joked, a bit dryly. 

Wilbur shrugged. “Still, I’m glad he has a friend.” There was something uncomfortably honest about the statement, and Techno squirmed in his seat. “Plus,” he added, “you seem like a cool guy. I was a little worried you’d be an axe murderer or something.”

“How do you know I’m not an axe murderer?” He grinned, and Wilbur laughed again like he was actually funny. 

The quiet that fell over them made him feel like he had to say something, and he found himself blurting out the first thing that came to his mind. “I thought. . . that you maybe wouldn’t like Tommy hanging around me.. . .” He trailed off, voice small, and waited for Wilbur to say something. He didn’t, just looked over expectantly, face soft. “Because, I’m not exactly. . . the top of society out here or anything.” He mumbled through it, gesturing limply towards himself. He internally cringed at the display, wishing he could’ve preemptively shut his mouth before he spoke. 

It felt strange to apologize for something he had never really bothered over before; others’ perceptions of him only mattered so long as they were the ones paying him or feeding him. He didn’t really expect to feel the weird, ugly mix of guilt and shame that swirled in his stomach like a sick animal, weighing like a rock sitting heavy on his internal organs. 

“Naw, we don’t care about stuff like that,” Wilbur smiled again, albeit a little sadly. “Trust me on that one.” 

There was a note of understanding in those words, and Techno could only smile back at them and accept them as the pardon they were. 

Wilbur, he thought, wasn’t nearly as horrible as Tommy had playfully painted him out to be. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for the feedback on the last chapter; reading your comments always brings a smile to my face! (Also I am very glad to hear I am not alone in my confusion over the word whoa/woah lmao). I'm not as confident with this chapter, but Wilbur is here so that's always a plus! Dialogue is very hard for me, so I hope I didn't fail too miserably!  
> Anyway, hope you all have been doing well! School started for me last week, so it's been an adjustment period for sure (especially what with going back into the building and all that). Have a lovely day and thank you for reading! :)


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Techno is reluctantly coerced into having dinner.

Techno hadn’t wanted to meet Phil. 

He had been very adamant about it, in the same way that Tommy was very adamant that it happen. 

“He really wants to meet you; he’s been bugging me all week about it!” Tommy sighed, and when Techno just looked at him silently, he puffed up and exclaimed: “Look I will literally _die_ if I have to hear about you for one more second! Do you want me to _die,_ Techno? Have you sunk so low into depravity that you would kill me with no remorse!?”

He snorted at the dramatic display of Tommy draped across the tree with flourish. “You see this, Techno? I’m _dead,_ this is what you’ve done to me.”

“Dead people are usually quieter than you, Tommy.”

The pout on the kid’s face was, as reluctantly as he admitted it, a little bit adorable. Tommy completely collapsed, staying silent for a minute or so, eyes closed and tongue sticking out dramatically, but Techno could see him peaking every couple of seconds. He carefully schooled his expression into one of blatant disinterest, forcing down the smile tugging on his lips, knowing that feigning boredom would only annoy the younger boy more. 

Approximately three seconds passed before Tommy burst up from his pose, exploding outwards in a violent storm of limbs. “Oh, you jackass!” He shouted, loudly enough to draw a couple glances from some people walking by. 

“I thought you were dead?”

“I’m a ghost! I’m a ghost and I’m haunting your ass! You’ll never sleep again, I’ll make sure of it!”

He slumped against the tree back, closing his eyes exhaustedly. “Oh, the guilt,” he muttered, trailing off. “I don’t think I can go on, knowing what I’ve done. . .” 

“Hell yeah, you can’t!” Tommy chimed in, arms crossed in the perfect display of annoyance. Techno grinned, and, with that, closed his eyes once again and stopped responding completely. “Which is exactly why you should come - it’ll cleanse your soul or something. You’ll be cleared of this horrible crime you’ve committed on this day!”

Tommy went silent for a second, and Techno could picture his narrowed eyes and confused-angry expression almost perfectly. 

“. . . Techno?”

His lips gave the barest of twitches. 

“Oh _come on,”_ he groaned, dragging the words out. “You’re so stupid, you dick.” Then Techno felt a punch land on his shoulder, not exactly lightly, and made an even bigger show out of slumping over sideways, landing sprawled out over the grass. “Oh my _god,_ Techno. Get up!” Tommy’s tugging on his arm was a complete failure without Techno helping lift himself up, and his smile only grew as Tommy groaned again. “People are staring, oh my god. They’re gonna think I actually killed you, Techno; do you want me to go to jail? What will you do without me? Oh my god, think about Wilbur - he’ll sink into a deep depression and become a recluse or something. You know him, he’s dramatic.” The stream of words (paired with more rough yanking on his limbs that almost made him regret the whole charade) was interrupted by Techno’s snort, finally breaking character. 

_“He’s_ dramatic?” He sat up, pushing the younger boy back before any more physical assault could be committed. “I think you might be describing yourself, there.”

Tommy leveled him with an incredulous look. “Techno, you just pretended to be dead for, like, twenty minutes; that’s way longer than I did it for!”

“That was _not_ twenty minutes, okay-”

“Alright, alright, whatever! It doesn’t matter!” Tommy huffed, before taking on a more timid look as he asked: “So are you gonna come to dinner?”

Techno smirked. “Yeah, no way.”

_“Oh come on, you stupid asshole! I just went through all of that for nothing, I swear to-”_

*****

It took three days of constant puppy dog faces, obnoxious begging, Tommy cursing his name, and exactly one politely posed invitation from Wilbur for Techno to agree to come to dinner. 

*****

And so, despite distinctly not wanting to meet Phil, Techno ended up meeting Phil. He guessed he should’ve figured it would turn out that way, with Tommy (and by association, Wilbur) as his opponent. 

The day before the set dinner date, he made the trek to the well in the woods by the edge of town. That, paired with the sluggish river that flowed nearby, served as a sort of communal washing area, among other things. Mostly people brought the well water back to their homes to heat and use as they needed, but he would manage just fine with the pail and the river. Sometimes, if he was lucky, someone left out a little chunk of soap to use as well, a small consideration that made things much easier. 

He didn’t bother to wash himself too often - he would just get dirty again come the next night of work, and walking across town, drenching himself, and then walking back to his nest to shiver in his dampness was never all that fun anyway. 

But he did it the day before dinner with Phil, because he had _some_ standards. He shivered in the morning cold, knee deep in river water, and scrubbed at his skin until the dirt etched into it slid off in sheets, revealing irritated pink flesh underneath. His hair was a separate monster all in itself, all gnarled and knotted, clumped together in ugly strands of dull brown. It was longer than he remembered, almost past his shoulders, and it took him more than an hour to be satisfied with the state of it. 

He stepped out of the water and shivered, brisk, almost-winter breeze wracking through his bones. He slipped back into his dirty clothes, not about to wash those and get hypothermic on the way back through town. It would take the garments hours to dry, and he definitely wasn’t about to sit naked in the woods for that long. Some sacrifices not even he was willing to make. . .

Going into work that night, he was careful about staying at least a little clean, and even told the other men that he wouldn’t be there the next night. They grunted, launching themselves into the upcoming fray without a second glance towards him, and Techno played support and didn’t take any risks and went home with two little coins jingling in his pocket that he wouldn’t have to use the next day. 

*****

Techno woke up the afternoon of the dreaded dinner with a huge pit in his stomach, an uncomfortable tangle of nerves that slithered and slid like something solid and alive inside him. His mouth was already dry, and he was just _thinking_ about the stupid thing. 

A part of him was nervous because of the concept of really interacting with an adult; of course, he talked to adults. . . He worked with them, and saw them on the streets and bought his meals from them, but none of that was a real conversation where either party was interested in the other. It was all superficial, and the last time it hadn’t been, Techno had still been living at home, and, even then, his parent’s had never been the most talkative. 

He walked until the sky was a shade of purple-blue, and he saw Tommy bouncing on his heels under the tree, looking comically excited and maybe just a little bit anxious. Next to him, Wilbur stood, still, with a relaxed sort of smile on his face. He pat Tommy on the back absentmindedly, saying something that made the boy turn and start yelling at him, a quiet buzz from the distance Techno was standing at. 

Wilbur laughed, silently pointed towards Techno’s approaching figure, making Tommy jerk around so fast he must’ve given himself whiplash. 

“Techno!” He exclaimed, as soon as Techno was within hearing distance (and Tommy just about doubled hearing distance with his sheer volume, anyway.) 

“Tommy,” he responded, simply, taking a spot in between the brothers as the younger excitedly dragged him along by the wrist. 

“Finally, I thought you’d _never_ show up,” Tommy groaned, as they walked. 

“Your hair is pink?” Wilbur asked, completely derailing the chain of conversation, gesturing at Techno’s hair with his closer hand. Tommy whirled around and looked up all at once, somehow walking backwards with his neck craned up and not wiping out within five seconds, an impressive feat in and of itself. 

_“Your hair is pink?”_ He gasped, mouth wide open. 

“I mean, kind of, I guess. Light pink. Ish.” He was embarrassed; without all the dirt tangled into his hair, it was some shade of pale pink, a trait common among his old town but certainly not among most others. When it was clean, people had the tendency to stare at him, and it wasn’t exactly his favorite part of himself. “I cleaned it,” he added, then felt stupid.

Wilbur smiled softly from beside him. “I think it suits you.” 

“Yeah! You look like some kind of. . . cool, pink. . . dude,” Tommy added, distracted as he finally tripped over himself, losing his train of thought and whatever words went with it. 

“. . . Thanks,” he mumbled, and Wilbur laughed at the embarrassed flush on his face. 

They got to the shop before any other meaningful conversations could be had; mostly, Tommy filled the dead air with chatter, the seemingly never ending stream of words somehow comforting to Techno’s shot nerves. The lights were on, a soft orange glow illuminating the cobbled path outside. It looked warm, inviting. 

He sucked in a jittery breath, feeling like the air was barely making it to his lungs. His hands shook against his will, a tiny tremor that he hid by grabbing the fabric of his worn shirt within both hands. His legs seemed stuck to the ground they were on. 

Wilbur’s hand found its way to his shoulder, Tommy tugged on his wrist with another round of excited jabbering, and Techno gulped, took a step forward, and then he was inside, and Phil was in front of him. 

He must’ve been waiting by the entrance, or maybe Techno was just overanalyzing it, but either way, he stepped forward with his hand outstretched, and Techno found himself taking it before he could remember how his fingers were vibrating. Phil’s hand was warm and large, oddly calloused for a bookkeeper, and his grip was firm but not hurtful in any way.

“Hi, I’m Phil!” He introduced himself, releasing Techno’s hand. “It’s nice to meet you.” His voice was accented, similar to both the younger boys, softening his words. 

“Techno,” he mumbled back, feeling the eyes of everyone on him like a physical weight. He was wilting under the pressure. “Nice to meet you, too,” he added meekly. 

“Phiiiiiiil,” Tommy interrupted (Thank God), dragging out his words in a whine, “is dinner ready yet?”

Phil and Wilbur gave twin eye rolls, and Techno had to smile at that, just a little. “Yes, your highness.” 

“Well then what are we waiting for?” Tommy was already out of the room by the time he finished speaking, and the three of them exchanged a glance before following. Huh, he had never exchanged a glance with anyone like that before, like there was a joke and he was in on it. 

They walked from the front room, a small, cozy area full of books of all sizes and colors, little chairs scattered around in various corners, entering further into the home. They entered a kitchen area, a table on one end of the small space, four mismatched chairs at each side of it. There were candles lit, a window with the blinds open, facing one of the back alleys on the town, and the wonderful aroma of food permeating the whole thing. It was cluttered, but in a way that was friendly instead of claustrophobic; it looked like people lived in the space, in the way that he could imagine Tommy racing down the stairs every morning and raining havoc within the small area, could hear the hum of Wilbur singing from upstairs. . . he could even picture Phil, standing in front of the oven, or reading in one of the chairs in the front. 

He sat down in one of the chairs with a lump in his throat, as Phil shuffled around getting everything set up. Wilbur helped him, while Tommy insisted that Techno just sit down and relax; Techno joked back that talking to him was hardly relaxing. 

The food, set out before them, looked amazing - a small chicken and some rice and beans. He stared at it, wide-eyed, unsure of how to start. His stomach let out a loud grumble, against his will. Wilbur laughed at him, not unkindly, and scraped some food on his plate for him, and for a while, Tommy filled the empty space of conversation with banter, talking about something that was lost on Techno. 

He was thinking, observing, taking in the dynamics between the group, specifically Phil, disguising it behind the guise of being too busy eating to talk. The older man was blonde, hair spilling over the sides of his face and his ears, curling just slightly around his neck, light stubble lining his jawline. A green striped hat covered the top of his head, and his eyes were a bright shade of blue, not dissimilar to Tommy’s. He was shorter than Wilbur, but just a couple inches taller than Techno. He smiled a lot, and laughed in a giggly, contagious sort of way, every aspect of him screaming friendliness. 

He didn’t say much as Tommy and Wilbur argued over this and that, and Techno wondered if he was ignoring them, before he noticed the way Phil’s eyes followed the speaker, and how his smile grew as he watched the younger boys. He was genuinely just listening, only interjecting every once in a while, apparently actually interested in Tommy’s latest exploits with the women of the town (Techno had told him he shouldn’t talk like that - it was embarrassing for everyone involved, really). 

There was a certain system between the three of them, a connection that was apparent even from the outside looking in. They acted like a real family, he realized, completely comfortable. They fit together, and the longer Techno looked at them, the more he could see it. In the way Phil gently admonished Tommy when he spoke out of line, or how he encouraged Wilbur’s latest song. In the way Tommy and Wilbur flicked crumbs at each other over the table, finally uniting in an effort to lay siege on Phil’s face, all playful and joking and _normal._

He was. . . surprised. 

He didn’t think his parents had ever listened to him like that. 

The pit in his stomach grew larger, uncomfortably present. 

“So, Techno, how are you?” Phil asked, and, too late, Techno noticed how his fork had fallen still. 

“Oh, uh, good. I guess. You?”

“I’m well, thank you! I’m excited to be meeting you; Tommy’s talked about you nonstop for, like, two months.” There was a conspiratorial twinkle in his eyes as he spoke, lips stretching out into a grin. 

“Have _not!”_ Tommy interjected, crossing his arms angrily. 

“More like three,” Wilbur added from his side of the table. 

“Oh really?” Techno asked, deciding to play along. “What does he say about me?”

“Oh, just how cool you are, stuff like that. How he wishes you’d teach him how to sword fight, how you’re ten times more fun than Wilbur. . . Oh, and the one time he cursed you out for ten minutes cause you called him short or something.” Phil teased, grinning from ear to ear at Techno from across the table. 

Techno raised his eyebrows, allowing himself a small smirk. “Quite the mixed bag there.”

“Hey, shut up you assholes!” Tommy shrieked. “Stop talking about me like I’m not here. Actually, don’t talk about me at all! It’s called _privacy._ Heard of it?”

“Nope, sorry!” Phil popped the p in nope. 

It wasn’t mean, despite the overdramatic pout that filled Tommy’s face, which broke nearly the second Wilbur started laughing. “You’re so cruel to me, Phil,” he groaned, and Phil only reached across the table to ruffle his hair. 

It was. . . friendly, Techno realized, not berating or harsh. It was just teasing. His stomach twisted again (what was wrong with him?). 

“You’re from the south, Techno?” Phil asked, still friendly, just making conversation. 

“Yeah,” he answered, a little less of a mumble this time, but trying to be as vague as possible. “Near the ocean,” he added, a little wistfully. The warm water had been his favorite part of home. 

“There was an ocean next to my old village,” Phil exclaimed, excited. “Not really great for swimming, but, you know. . .” He added sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck but smiling at the memory regardless. “We ate a lot of fish, over there - always reminds me of home.” 

He rambled on a little more about the sea, painting pictures of huge boats on arctic waters, casting nets into the dark water. “My dad took me out there a couple times, when I was twelve or so; I nearly got bowled over the side of the boat, as small as I was. I don’t think it was ever my calling.” Techno could picture the churning water as clear as day, could smell the salt in the air, feel the stickiness of it on his hands and on his legs, cutting off just below his knees, where his pants were rolled up. 

He gulped, opened his mouth. “Where I’m from, it’s a small place, so we didn’t have any huge boats. We had little ones, though; I used to go out and fish on those, and the water was warm, so sometimes you could jump right in and swim around for a while.” The information felt strange hanging in the air, but he felt worse just letting everyone else carry the conversation for him. 

Phil brightened, Wilbur smiled, and Tommy went on eating his food with all the gusto of a man starving.

“Have you ever had crab?” Phil asked, and Techno managed a smile, opening his mouth again to answer. The constriction of his lungs loosened just the tiniest bit. 

*****

“What are you doing?” Wilbur asked, after dinner was over and Techno had already thanked Phil more than five times for the meal (and helped him with the dishes, as Tommy whined, because it felt wrong not to), as he was heading for the door.

“What do you mean? I’m going home,” he answered, and Wilbur tilted his head like someone posed with a very confusing question. Tommy, from next to his brother, shot Techno an angry look. “No, you’re staying the night, dumbass,” he said, moving forward and trapping Techno’s arm in an ironclad grip, starting to drag him forwards, away from the door and towards the stairs. “I did _not_ go to all this effort just for you to leave after two hours.”

“I am? Did I consent to this?” He mumbled, resisting weakly against Tommy’s pulling. But he was no match by the time Wilbur joined in on his other side, and Phil peeped his head through the kitchen door with a smile. “We’d be happy to have you!” 

That was the final nail in the coffin, and Techno found himself in the brothers’ room, a small area with a single bed and some clothes spread out along one half of the floor. There was a guitar leaning haphazardly against one wall, a mess of blankets and bed covers piled at the end of the bed, spilling onto the floor. 

Wilbur reached for the instrument and mindlessly strummed a few chords, humming a soft little tune as Tommy excitedly dug through a pile of stuff, triumphantly yanking a small book free after a minute or so. He sat in the very center of the bed, opening the book across his lap and yanking Techno to his left, reading aloud with the same bravado and volume he carried with him everywhere else. 

The words were unfamiliar garble on the page, indistinguishable scribbles and shapes that seemed to swim on the paper, curled and yellowed with old age. He looked away as Tommy squinted, overenunciating each difficult word, skipping over particularly long ones, leaning back and closing his eyes. Wilbur ceased his humming so the younger boy could practice, an occasional chord sounding throughout the room. 

He wondered if he should move to the floor (if he had to spend the night, it only made sense that he didn’t intrude on the everyday way of things, like forcing himself into a bed that really wasn’t all that big), but his limbs felt heavy like lead, and Tommy hadn’t looked up from his reading once, and Wilbur didn’t look particularly bothered. . . 

Before he even knew it, he was drifting into an easy doze, exhausted from the nerves that had controlled his body for the better part of the day. They had been an ever present buzz throughout the entire meal, although they had settled down after an hour or so. The food in his stomach was heavy and warm, making him drowsy; it was almost uncomfortable, how strange the feeling was. 

In fact, his whole body felt strange, an odd sort of warmth not typical of winter spreading its way through his bones, settling in his chest like a cat curled up to sleep. He felt content, and too tired to bother being conflicted as of why, an unconscious smile upturning the corners of his lips just a little. Between the soft blanket settled comfortably over his legs, the warm presence of Tommy to his right, and the quiet buzz of background noise surrounding him, he drifted off to sleep with no trouble at all. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey!!!! Super sorry for the super long wait; I feel like life got really busy right after I posted the last chapter - I just got a job and I'm trying to square away college applications and ahhhhhhhh!! There's so much to do! Even so, I wish I could've got to this a lot sooner than I did! This chapter was hard for me to write - lots of scary dialogue and the introduction of Phil (:DD); let me know how I did! (Also this is by far the longest chapter I've written for this, so I'm throwing consistent chapter length out the window I guess, as a little treat for making y'all wait so long lol). Thank you for all the lovely comments; they always make my day :)


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Techno wakes up.

Techno woke up to a bony elbow hitting him square in the face, making him sputter and blink his eyes open way too fast. As it turned out, Tommy was a fitful sleeper, his limbs spread out over the entire bed, a leg thrown over Techno’s own and the elbow jabbing into his cheek. Wilbur wasn’t faring much better, although he remained blissfully asleep. 

He blinked at the tiny window, to where the sky was just lightening in the beginnings of dawn. It was way earlier than he normally woke up, but he supposed it made sense if he hadn’t worked through the night like normal. Rubbing his eyes blearily, he felt comfortable and warm, like he could stay tangled up where he was forever. 

Tommy snorted in his sleep, moving his limbs unconsciously, and the feeling shattered into a million pieces, turning sharp and jagged in his chest. Suddenly, shockingly, everything was too close all at once; the warm weight of Tommy against his side burned fire hot and he felt horribly and inescapably trapped. A cold ball of shame exploded in his chest, sick embarrassment that he would dare to be so _near_ someone else. He had probably _never_ been as close to someone as he was then; he could hardly believe he hadn’t noticed the night before. 

Very carefully, Techno worked to extract himself from the cage of Tommy’s wayward limbs, gently tucking them back in next to the boy so he wouldn’t wake up. Tommy grumbled regardless, rolling away from Techno with a little huff, cuddling up to Wil and finally allowing him to make his escape. 

Standing next to the door, he took a quiet moment to look over the sleeping brothers, smiling fondly even as he trembled at the excessive, and then entirely absent, human contact (it was a strange reaction, he thought, that even his body was shaking in feeling). Wilbur had an arm resting loosely over Tommy’s shoulders, the other neatly resting on his chest, rising and falling with the movement. His hair fell in big swoops over most of his face, but what was visible was easy and untroubled. Tommy, in the absence of a warm body to his left, had curled completely into Wilbur, clutching his arm and snoring directly into the older boy’s ear. 

It was nice, he thought, and trembled all over, and padded quietly down the stairs. 

There was no one in the kitchen or the little living area, and definitely no one in the shop, as early as it was. The embers in the kitchen fireplace were dying, little more than tiny curls of fire and the resulting wisps of smoke, barely enough to see in the air, so the house was colder than it had been the night before. His feet burned cold against the brick floor, but it was nothing unbearable. 

Slipping on his shoes, he made for the door to the shop, hand hovering above the handle before he thought better of it; Tommy would chew him out if he left without saying goodbye, and Wilbur would pull out his saddest pair of eyes and chastise him. So, sighing, his hand fell limply to his side once more as he returned to the kitchen. 

For a minute, he stood there silently, awkward in the empty aloneness of the room early in the morning, before he noticed a back door, half hidden by the stacks of stuff on the counter next to it. The glimpse of green through a cloudy window was all the convincing he needed to urge him towards the door and step outside. 

The door led to a little patch of grass, closed off along the back and sides by a worn down looking wooden fence, blocking the view of the cobbled streets. There was a small garden along the side of the house, just a few plants sprouting out of the dirt, and he recognized tomatoes and basil and sunflowers, among other things. They weren’t doing the best, but it wasn’t the season for them to be, so he didn’t judge Phil’s gardening abilities too harshly. 

The morning air was chilly against his skin, and he shivered in distaste at the idea that winter had already started to enter its worst months. Even so, Techno smiled as he ran a gentle finger down the leaves of a sunflower, sitting criss cross next to the patch. They were almost taller than him, like that, so he looked directly into ones’ face as he spoke, looking around to make sure he was alone.

“Do you like it here?” He asked. 

The flower, predictably, did not respond. 

“I hope you do.” The leaves were soft and dry beneath his fingers. “I bet you can hear everything. If you could talk, you’d tell nice stories, I think.” The head of the flower seemed to just barely lean towards him, but Techno knew better than to think anything of it. He had thought that he could hear the plants talk when he was a kid, and he would run through fields and fields of crops just to hide and listen. They had been some of his only friends, those rows and rows of potatoes and corn, but he knew by now that whatever he had heard had been responses from the depths of his own imagination. 

He glanced towards the small cluster of neighboring flowers, lips quirking upwards just a little. “And you have all your family here with you.” The sunflower sympathetically moved with the brisk breeze. “I’m glad you have someone.” A sunflower wasn’t meant to be a solitary flower, after all. 

For a minute, he sat in silence, thinking (he had been warm that morning, and safe, and full; he felt weird).

“Techno?” A soft voice called from the doorway back inside, and he jerked and turned his wide eyes on a sleepy looking Phil. 

“Uhhh, hi,” he answered, about to scramble up, feeling like he had been caught doing something wrong, when Phil walked over and sat down neatly next to him with a big yawn. Techno blinked at him in surprise, but the older man just shrugged and smiled. Surprisingly, there was only a slight twinge of nerves inside his chest; Phil was easy to talk to.

“Do you like the garden?”

“Yeah,” Techno mumbled, looking away, “plants are good conversationalists.”

Phil barked a loud, bright laugh of surprise, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “You were talking to them?”

He could feel the way his face exploded into a blush, embarrassment welling up in his lungs fast and sharp. He could play it off as a joke; it had sounded like one. Instead, he swallowed around his tongue and told Phil: “Yeah, I used to when I was little. They’re good at listening.”

Phil hummed thoughtfully. “Yeah, I guess they would be.”

They sat quietly for a minute or two, as Techno absentmindedly rubbed a leaf between two fingers. 

“Wilbur picked sunflowers,” Phil said after a while, “when we bought the seeds. Yellow’s his favorite color, you know. The food and herbs are my picks.” He huffed a quiet little noise, lips quirked upwards in a fond smile. “Tommy didn’t want any plant, so he made me get him chocolate instead.”

“Sounds like him,” Techno snorted, and thought that Tommy would've picked something red if he had wanted to. 

“Wanna water ‘em?” Phil asked, pushing himself up with his hands on his knees. 

“Sure,” Techno responded, not wanting to sound too excited, making a conscious effort not to jump up to his feet after the man. 

Phil grinned, picking up a small bucket from where it was leaning against the wall. Inside, it was warm, much warmer than it had been when he’d went out, and the fire in the kitchen was rejuvenated, no longer just a smoldering pile of slightly burnt wood. Phil refilled the bucket from a half full pail of water in the corner, handing it to Techno carefully. 

He smiled as he distributed the water as evenly as he could among the small cluster of plants, and, wordlessly, Phil settled down beside him and began pulling out the little clumps of weeds sprouting from the dirt. He hummed as he worked, a cheerful tune, and the familiar smell of dirt rose into the air and clung to his hands. 

“You can come by anytime to take care of them,” Phil said quietly, when there was a small pile of uprooted weeds in between them. “You can plant something, too, if you’d like.”

Techno was silent for a minute, trying not to think about the warm feeling that flooded his chest at the words, threatening to drown him completely. “Okay. I’d - I’d like that,” he told Phil, so quiet he wasn’t sure the other man had even heard him, but Phil just smiled warmly and nodded. Techno didn’t jump when the hand landed softly on his shoulder, less of a weight and more of a presence, steady and simple. 

The feelings he had abandoned upstairs returned very suddenly, like a spear to the chest; here he was, close to another person. His shoulder burned, and it was agonizing and comfortable all at once. He had missed this, somehow, even if he had never really felt it at all. He didn’t need this, he thought, and Phil’s hand was light and his laugh was easy, but he didn’t need it. 

He resolutely shoved the feeling deep down past his throat and down into the pit of his stomach, and resolutely didn’t think about it as they walked back inside to start breakfast, and resolutely didn’t think about how he hadn’t had breakfast in years. 

“You can crack the eggs!” Phil exclaimed brightly, and Techno’s lips twitched involuntarily at his excitement. He had never cracked an egg before, so he tapped with too light a force the first few times, only to completely smash the thing on his fourth attempt, getting egg and shell all over the rim of the bowl and his hands. “Sorry, sorry, I’m-” he was sputtering out, frantically scraping up the goop in his hands, ignoring the sting of the eggshell jabbing his palm, when he heard Phil’s wheezing laughter, devolving into little giggles. 

“Here,” he said, and wiped Techno’s hands with a damp cloth, and his smile didn’t leave his face for one second, even as he got another egg and placed it securely in Techno’s still outstretched hand. 

“Phil, are you sure-”

“Of course, Techno,” Phil said, and curled Techno’s fingers around the egg as further affirmation. “Here, I’ll help you.” 

It was only a little ridiculous how Phil actually guided his hand and cracked the new egg with the perfect amount of force, the embarrassment of it all causing an ugly blush to spread on his face. He tried again, alone, and Phil beamed when the egg made it into the bowl with no shell. “There you go!” He encouraged, and Techno thought he would die if he had to spend another minute cracking eggs. 

Luckily for him, Wilbur chose that moment to stumble his way down the stairs, yawning and stretching his arms over his head. “Hey,” he mumbled, blinking blearily at them and squinting. “Why does Techno look like a tomato?”

He glowered at Wil, deciding he was going to make sure some extra eggshell landed in his. . . whatever they were making, but the other just grinned at him. 

“It’s just really hot in here, Wilbur,” he growled out, as Phil laughed at the two of them. 

Racing footsteps interrupted whatever rebuttal Wilbur had at the ready as Tommy came shooting out of the stairwell, already wailing. “Phiiiiiiil, Techno left!” He shouted, skidding to a sharp stop and panting in the middle of the room. 

“Really? Where’d he go?” Techno asked, grinning as Tommy turned to him with wide eyes, face exploding in an angry blush. “What, are you actually trying to kidnap me or something, Tommy?”

_“No!”_ Tommy shrieked emphatically. “It’s just. . . ummm, you didn’t, you didn’t, uh. . . pay your rent for your stay here! _Obviously,_ I didn’t want you to be a thief, Techno.” The sharp panic in Tommy’s eyes only grew more obvious as Phil shot him a blatant look, and as Wilbur chortled behind his hand. 

He might’ve taken the kid seriously, if he hadn’t been sweating down his back, and if Phil hadn’t assured him the night before that he didn’t have to pay anything. He squished down the tiny prick of guilt he felt again, schooling his face into his best deadpan. 

“Uh huh,” Techno agreed, pulling out a coin from his pocket with dramatic flourish. “Of course, I understand.” And with that, he strode over to Tommy, took his hand, and placed the money in his sweaty palm, relishing the way his eyes widened and his mouth twisted as he thought of what to say. 

“I - oh, um, you don’t actually have-” He trailed off, as Techno kept his face completely serious. 

“Tommy,” Phil said from the sidelines, sounding both exasperated and amused. “You have to think before you speak.”

“Out of all the things you could’ve said,” Wilbur wheezed, “you picked _that?”_

Techno raised a brow at the kid.

_“Fine!”_ Tommy glared at him, gesturing wildly for him to take the coin back. “You don’t actually have to pay! Take your stupid money!”

“Aww, did you want to say goodbye to me?” He crooned, and Tommy crossed his arms and stormed to his seat. 

_“No,_ fuck you, you stupid bitch!”

Wilbur was dying in his place at the table, and Phil shook his head fondly as he turned back to the breakfast. Techno couldn’t stop his smile as he sat down and Tommy immediately turned and pummeled him with his fists. It was an expression he kept throughout the entirely of the meal, as Tommy finally warmed back up to him and as Wilbur talked about what his plans were that day and as Phil told him about the book shop. 

Tommy did end up saying goodbye to him, punching him roughly on the shoulder, to which Techno ruffled up his hair. Before he left, he slipped the coin on Phil’s ledger book in the shop; Tommy had been right that he had slept there _and_ been offered two meals, and a single coin was the least he could do, he thought guiltily (the feeling had returned, despite his best efforts), even if Phil insisted he didn’t have to. And even so, he left with the same smile on his face, a small and private thing, but there nonetheless. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey!! How have you guys been doing? This chapter is more lowkey, but it features lots of Philza minecraft <3; also sorry about the wait once again! I definitely wanted to get something out over my Thanksgiving Break and I'm glad to have this to deliver, even if nothing really exciting happens in this one. Any constructive feedback is welcome, and thank you all for the amazingly nice comments; they literally are the highlights of my day when I read them!! The support on this has really motivated me to keep working on it, so thank you all for reading! <3<3<3<3 Hope you have an epic day or night wherever you are!!! :)


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Techno gets pranked, relatively (un)successfully.

Techno, surprisingly, actually did visit the book shop semi frequently. Not always for dinner - in fact, he tried to skip out on those in case Phil got tired of him leeching, but daytime visits were nice enough, even easy. He liked visiting, once he got more used to it. 

Tommy had helped with that, with his brash way of dragging Techno along. He’d complain about the temperature, and while he wasn’t _wrong,_ he definitely played it up to be worse than it was (“I’m _dying,_ Techno - I’m freezing to death!”). Techno humored him, half because it made the kid happy, but mostly so that he wouldn’t whine all day. 

Wilbur wasn’t home as much, and had other friends, but he always smiled warmly when he came in to Techno sprawled out on the floor of their room. Phil, too, always greeted him enthusiastically, striking up a conversation if the shop was slow, and always extending the offer to stay the night. Techno never said yes, when he remembered the weird burning warm feeling. 

Sometimes, at the shop, he just slept while Tommy talked, or did something in the background. He would quietly puzzle over a book or write in his scratchy script, proudly showing the paper off when Techno blinked himself awake. He was almost surprised that Tommy wasn’t so high energy all the time, but as he studied the kid pouring over curling paper, it felt just as natural as his typical shrieking. 

He rolled over and tried not to think about the almost domestic turn of his thoughts, curling the blankets tighter around himself like a shield from the world. 

“Can you teach me how to swordfight?” Tommy asked him once when he woke up to leave for work. 

He narrowed his eyes, blinking the remnants of sleep from them. “Are you trying to ask me when I’m asleep so that I’ll say yes?”

“. . . Noooo, why would you think that?”

Techno snorted, rubbing at his face. “Why do you wanna know how to fight?”

Tommy looked at him sheepishly, before very suddenly turning his volume all the way up again. _“Because_ it’s for self defense, obviously! Imagine I’m being kidnapped, and then - _bam!_ Sword in their face! Same deal with monsters; what if Phil sends me on an epic journey through the wilderness?”

“When would Phil _ever_ send you alone into the woods?” Techno stood, cracking his back with a groan. 

Tommy, instead of addressing that point, leveled him with a serious look. “Techno, do you want me to get kidnapped?”

“If someone was taking _you_ voluntarily, I think they could have you.”

Tommy stuck his tongue out, glaring. “Bitch.”

“Hmm, I was thinking of saying yes, but if that’s what you think. . .”

“No, no no, Techno I didn’t mean it! I’m sorry!” Tommy exclaimed, waving his arms in front of him. 

“Uh huh,” he agreed skeptically. 

“I’ll, uh, I’ll never call you a bitch ever again!”

Techno smirked again, and, walking out of the room and down the stairs, found himself agreeing to the deal, Tommy assuring him that Phil had already agreed, knowing full well that the kid wasn’t going to uphold his side of it at all. 

*****

In all honesty, Tommy wasn’t _that_ bad of a fighter, from what Techno could tell within three or so weeks. 

They practiced with wooden swords (Tommy had begged to use real iron ones, but the rest of them were instantly in silent, unanimous agreement that there was no way in hell that was happening) every time Techno visited, sparring in the little backyard until one of them got tired or until it got dark. 

His footwork was sloppy and his swings disjointed and strange, but he was a fast learner, and, for the most part, actually tried to listen to Techno. He certainly picked it up more cleanly than Techno had when he was eight and training with his brother, who had more than doubled his height and who had used a golden sword. 

The vague threat of it all had probably actually helped Techno learn, but, as he fingered the perfect, thin line of a scar on his cheek, light and faded with time, he remembered how it had stung and how he had cried, and couldn’t picture Tommy with blood all over his face without cringing. There had been worse wounds from training, but that was the one that always came to mind first, something about the shock of it all that stuck with him. It was the first real scar he had ever gotten. 

His face tightened when he pictured the patch of yellowed grass that served as his training grounds, stained with ugly, dark blood. Day after day of the same routine, metal clashing against metal, his limbs protesting the new movement, his parents’ faces, darkened in the shadow they stood under, always disapproving. His brother had been quick and strong and (like Techno; the only thing they really had in common) had wanted nothing more than a smile aimed in his direction. It was simple really: he sent Techno careening to the ground, world spinning on its axis, and he got what he wanted. 

“Hold it like this, Technoblade,” his mother would say, jerking his wrist into the proper position, and the sword was always too heavy. 

“Don’t be weak,” his father growled, when warm tears welled in Techno’s eyes. “It’s just a little cut.” He very quickly learned not to cry at the sight of blood, or at the sting of it, or at the steeled look in his brother’s eyes. He never learned to stop looking to the left, where his parents would stand to glower, even when they stopped showing up completely, when he was eleven and good enough to fight alone.

Techno hadn’t thought of them that much in years. His sword trembled in his hands, sometimes, if he wasn’t careful. 

Phil watched from the sidelines sometimes, when he wasn’t busy, tapping his fingers not-quite-nervously. Surprisingly, he offered the occasional piece of advice to the two of them, like he knew how to fight as well. (“Don’t hold your sword so high up, Tommy!” he’d call lightly, or: “Don’t favor your left so often, Techno.”) At first, he made Techno nervous, just watching, like he didn’t trust Techno, but the paranoia died down a bit when Phil started bringing books out with him, not even really watching.

Wilbur, too, occasionally joined them, alternating between thoughtlessly strumming his guitar and mercilessly bullying Tommy. 

“As if you could do any better,” Tommy scoffed, and Wilbur just grinned. 

“Sure, but I haven’t been claiming to be a sword fighting master over dinner for weeks.”

Tommy grumbled but didn’t refute the claim, and Techno snorted. 

“Might be gettin’ ahead of yourself, huh, Tommy?” He asked, as, with a final swipe of his sword through the air, Tommy’s weapon went flying from his hands. 

“Bitch,” Tommy glowered as he fetched his sword and as Wilbur cackled unapologetically in the background. 

They squared off again, Techno’s eyes lingering on the younger’s footwork as Tommy shuffled back and forth, waiting for an opening. Suddenly, the kid was launching himself forward, putting all his weight behind his sword, only for Techno to gracefully step to the left. Tommy shrieked as he struck empty air and proceeded to almost kill himself by careening into the side of the house, nearly taking the plants out with him. Wilbur erupted in raucous laughter as Phil looked up from his book with an exasperated smile. “Maybe focus less on the offensive for now, Toms,” he giggled, and Techno’s lips quirked as Tommy flushed bright red, sputtering. 

_“Fine,”_ he hissed, and stood angrily in a defensive stance, every muscle looking tense and taught, ready to snap. 

“Feet wider apart,” Techno advised, and Tommy glared at him as he shifted. 

He started out slow with his swings and movements, making them easy for Tommy to meet each time, before speeding up. Tommy’s eyes flashed as he cut through the open air, and Techno felt a strange burst of pride nearly immobilize him when the boy didn’t falter or hesitate. 

He sped up a little more, trying to be more dynamic with his motion, grinning as they ducked across the entire lawn. Wilbur whooped and hollered from his spot against the house, although it was impossible to tell who he was actually cheering for. Phil had put his book down, clapping and shouting when Tommy blocked a strike or when Techno pulled some fancy footwork. Exhilaration welled up within him; it was the most fun he had had fighting since he was very, very young. 

That was, until Tommy missed a parry and fell with a little scream, landing in a crumpled heap on the ground. 

Techno instantly froze, limbs jerking stiff; he didn’t think he had hit the kid _that_ hard, but, but - had he hit Tommy’s head? He couldn’t remember; his hands started to shake, sword falling limply from his grip. 

“Tommy?” He gasped, dropping to his knees next to the lump. Tommy just groaned and clutched at his head, sounding more pitiful than Techno had ever heard him. 

“Tommy!” Phil was next to him now, Wilbur on his other side. The blonde man was pale, and Wilbur had a pinched, worried look on his face. “Tommy, look at me. Are you hurt?”

Tommy just shook below them, and Techno felt his entire body curl in on itself. His legs gave out below him as the tremors traveled their way through his limbs. Wilbur glanced back at him worriedly. 

“Tommy?” Phil asked, his eyes narrowed. Oh gods, he hated Techno (and he _should)_ \- he had hurt Tommy. 

“Sorry, I’m - sorry,” Techno gasped out, and flinched as Wilbur reached a hand towards him. “I didn’t mean to,” he choked on the words, shoving down the tears that somehow threatened to escape. 

Phil’s gaze sharpened. _"Tommy,_ get up!” He hissed, and, suddenly, ear shattering laughter - Tommy - filled the air. “You - your faces -” he wheezed out, clutching his sides as he shook. 

He didn’t look particularly hurt, not a speck of blood on him and no glaringly obvious bumps or bruises. “That’ll get you guys for making fun of me!” His laughter swam in Techno’s ears, such a huge juxtaposition to the crumpled pile he’d been, that he felt stuck. 

_“Sorry,”_ he said again, as Phil turned towards him. 

“Oh, no, Techno, it’s fine, he was ju-”

“I didn’t mean to actually hit him,” Techno told him. 

“You _didn’t_ hit me, I fell on purpose. I am a master actor, though, so-” 

“Tommy, _shut up,”_ Wilbur gritted out through his teeth. 

They were all staring at his hands, so Techno sat on them to stop the jitters, finally blinking at Tommy and taking him in again. 

“Tommy’s not hurt, he was just being a brat,” Phil reassured, shuffling closer and resting a hand on Techno’s knee. Techno suppressed the urge to flinch. Tommy didn’t even refute it, eyes big and wide with realization. 

“Really?” He asked Tommy, and the kid looked crestfallen. 

“Y-yeah, Big Man. I’m fine.”

“You scared me,” Techno admitted, unable to stop the words from tumbling out of his mouth. “I thought I’d given you brain damage.” It sounded like a joke. 

“Tommy already has brain damage,” Wilbur scoffed, but he had a hand on Tommy’s shoulder as he spoke. 

“Sorry,” Tommy breathed out, although Techno wasn’t really sure why he was apologizing. 

He turned back to Phil. “I just wanted you to know that I didn’t mean to - I wouldn’t. . . If it happened.” He struggled, forgetting why he had sat on his hands and lifting shaking fingers to graze the scar on his face. 

“I know. I know you wouldn’t hurt Tommy, Techno,” Phil said, clasping Techno’s palm in his own. He looked upset. 

“I think I should go,” he told them, but Wilbur just shook his head softly. “Naw, c’mon,” he spoke lightly, and heaved Techno up from the ground, leading him inside and upstairs. 

They settled next to each other on the bed, Wilbur with his guitar across his lap, strumming quietly, like he needed something to do with his hands. 

“Phil won’t hurt you,” he said, suddenly, but gently, putting down the instrument. “Not even if you did hit Tommy today.” 

Techno was quiet. 

“I used to think he would.” He sucked in a huge breath. “I was a horrible kid, Techno.”

Techno turned his head to look at Wilbur through half lidded eyes. His face was pinched and uncomfortable, but his eyes shone with something like resolve. He wanted to tell Wilbur that he didn’t have to do what he was about to do, but the words stuck in his throat. 

“I think I was thirteen when he found us - me and Tommy - and I didn’t want any help at all. We stole and we lied and we got on just fine without anyone else. Phil, of course, was very nice about it; he was always giving us food and offering us a place to sleep, and I was always saying no because, because-”

“People are dangerous,” Techno finished for him, easily, when he saw the way Wilbur’s face twisted. 

“They all want something from you, or they want to _hurt_ you.” Techno had never seen Wilbur as cagey as he was then, eyes flicking back and forth and shoulders drawn tight to his body. He could almost imagine him small and skinny and with a fine layer of dirt coating his skin, could imagine him spiteful and angry and sad. 

“But Tommy got sick that winter, really, really bad.” Wilbur looked at him with huge, glossy eyes. “I think I almost killed him, Techno, by waiting so long to get help. He was unconscious for _days.”_

Techno, noting Wilbur’s white knuckled grip on the edge of his shirt, hesitantly reached out, grabbing the other’s fingers with careful intention. Wilbur offered him a shaky smile, eyes shining wet. 

“When Tommy woke up, we couldn’t leave right away, of course, so I made it a point to be as awful to Phil as I could. He. . . scared me. But Tommy warmed up to him so quickly that we couldn’t leave even after he was better, because I couldn’t leave without him following. And I. . . I couldn’t leave him anyway.”

Wilbur turned his body towards Techno as he spoke, moving his hands to rest on Techno’s shoulders, his face suddenly determined. “And Phil never once hurt either of us. You have to understand that.”

They were both quiet for a minute. The air felt thick in his lungs, struggling to escape. 

“I didn’t really think Phil would hurt me,” he said, after the silence began to border on suffocating, and he pretended that it wasn’t a lie. “I thought I had hurt Tommy.” His voice sounded small to his own ears. 

Wilbur’s face softened in surprise. “You were being so careful, Techno; I don’t think it was possible for an injury to actually happen.”

“I think it runs in my blood.”

“What does?” Wilbur asked, brow furrowed in confusion. 

“Hurting people,” he whispered, and his hand subconsciously grazed his cheek again. Wilbur met it in the air with his own and brought it back down to his lap, squeezing his fingers tightly. There was a look of grim realization in his face, and Techno wondered how it seemed he could understand everything when Techno had really said nothing at all. “We’re supposed to be warriors; we’re raised to hurt people.” He had never actually fought in a real battle, but he had watched with confused exaltation when his parents came home covered in blood. 

Wilbur shook his head, vehemently, speaking firmly. “You’re more than your family, _especially_ if all that connects you is blood. Blood doesn't mean anything you don't want it to. You don’t want to hurt people; the fact that you’re worrying about it shows that.” 

He didn’t respond, not willing to open his mouth and cry or do something equally embarrassing. 

“You’re not a bad person, okay, Techno?”

Hesitantly, he raised his eyes to meet Wilbur’s, and nodded once. The older boy narrowed his eyes at him, clearly not believing him. 

“Anyway,” he exclaimed, face lighting up, letting it go, “screw your old family! You got us now!”

“Wilbur,” he groaned, throat unsticking a little, “they weren’t _that_ bad.”

“Sure, but I bet we’re a lot nicer. . . Even _Tommy.”_

“Maybe,” he reluctantly agreed. As much as it was probably justified, it didn’t feel right talking poorly about his family. Wilbur just sighed, smiling reassuringly. 

“Dinner is probably almost ready, if you want to go downstairs.”

Techno blinked, uncomprehendingly. “I have to go to work, Wilbur.”

The death glare he was given was almost enough to make him wilt. “Not tonight, you don’t.”

“Wilb-”

_“Nope!_ C’mon!” And with that, Wilbur was dragging him by the wrist down the stairs, grip gentle and somehow grounding at the same time. 

The second they reached the bottom step, Tommy was launching himself at Techno with all his weight propelling him forward, wrapping his arms around Techno’s waist and burying his face in the dirty fabric of his shirt. All the air escaped his lungs as he reciprocated the hug nearly immediately, more out of surprise than anything else. “Sorry, Techno,” Tommy mumbled, barely understandable past the fabric. “That was mean.”

“Oh. Um, it’s really fine, Tommy.”

“Are you sure?” Tommy asked, unburying himself to squint up at him, stubbornly still latched onto his midsection. 

Normally he would tease the kid with a sarcastic remark, but the general stress of the entire day and the guilty look obvious on Tommy’s face, normally so expressive with over the top rage, made him falter and try for a smile instead. “Yeah,” he breathed out, and Tommy released him after one final squeeze, beaming up at him. 

“Let’s eat, then!” He happily exclaimed, pulling Techno along about ten times rougher than Wilbur had. “I helped make everything, after Phil talked to me, so it should all be really good! Amazing compared to what you got last time, obviously-”

“Tommy, I will reconsider not punishing you, you know.”

“The cooking _was_ the punishment, Phil!”

Phil just raised his brow at the boy, until Tommy turned back to his plate with a nervous laugh. 

Techno ate quickly and then fidgeted in his seat, desperately not making any eye contact at all. Despite all his efforts, Phil got him near the end of the meal, cutting into him with searching blue eyes, a question in his gaze that somehow translated even to Techno, who was about as good at reading social cues as Tommy was at shutting up. He nodded once, carefully, forcing himself to keep his eyes off the table, and offered a weak smile, relieved when Phil’s face softened at the affirmation. Wilbur, from his right, flashed him a thumbs up and a brilliant smile, which he pointedly ignored. 

That ended up being the second night he slept over, despite his many protests. At a certain point, Tommy started shrieking just to drown them out, until Wilbur started chasing him around the house to get him to shut up, at which point he and Phil exchanged a single, incredulous look. He fell asleep almost immediately, exhausted, and couldn’t say he was surprised when he ended up with Tommy’s elbow in his face when he woke up the next morning. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AHHHH First of all, almost a month has passed!! I am so sorry about that; I hope this chapter can make up for the long wait! Although. . . I'm not the most confident with this one; dialogue isn't really my strong suit, so you'll have to tell me how it went. I hope all of you have been doing well, though, and have had/are having an epic holiday season! Your comments really make my days when I read them; they never cease to bring a smile to my face, so thank you for all the support!! <3


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Techno gets sick.

The cut really wasn’t anything that bad. 

It had hurt at first with a bright, stinging pain that lit up his entire vision, immediate and sharp in his leg where a zombie had managed to claw him. He had cried out, caught so off guard that the swipe almost knocked him off his feet. A nearby soldier quickly sliced the thing in half, and Techno had felt a wave of shame wash over him, quick and unforgiving and almost worse than the wound itself. 

He didn’t have time to wallow in it, as the world sped up again and the volume was turned up to 100 once more. Adrenaline - the need to prove himself even more so - made the cut small and unimportant. It only really hurt when he thought about it, anyway. 

He had looked the wound over, once he was back in his alley. It was jagged on the edges, not a clean cut by any means. The sloppy bandaging he had applied on the field was stained through completely, the slash still sluggishly leaking; his blood looked black in the barely lightening sky, staining his clothes and his hands and the pavement below him an ugly color. He would have to trek out to the other edge of town to clean it, he thought, and grimaced. 

Or, he thought, he could walk to the bookshop, and clean it there. No one would be awake until Phil got up to stoke the fire; he could hop in and out without anyone noticing at all. Except, that wouldn’t be right, especially with the way he’d been avoiding the place. He didn’t want to embarrass himself any more than he had, didn’t want to weigh down the family and take up their space and resources and time. He hadn’t been back in weeks. Tommy, impossible to avoid, was livid with him.

(He ignored the fact that he missed them. He missed sparring with Tommy. He missed listening to Wilbur’s half formed new songs. He missed watering the plants with Phil, and telling them about his nights.)

Instead, he put pressure on his calf, trying to ignore the _sharpsharpsharp_ pangs of pain, almost wheezing with the effort of it all, until the flow of blood had mostly stopped. Ripping off a chunk of fabric from one of his ratty blankets, he made a makeshift bandage, thought little of the small slice (he very occasionally got injuries while traveling or fighting, and worse ones had healed up just fine), and fell asleep almost as soon as he had the thought to. 

*****

He woke up feeling like his entire body was on fire. 

The little whine that escaped his lips was involuntary (embarrassing), as he shifted on the hard ground. Hot, white pain shot up through his body, starting in his calf and settling as a rhythmic throb pulsing through everywhere else. He sat up, bracing himself on shaking arms, leaning forward to pull back the bandages on his leg. The smell of it hit him first, sour and rotting, and then the sight of it, all festering and leaking some suspiciously yellow pus, the cut curled up and raised and the skin around it glowing an unhealthy red color. His head swam. 

Definitely an infection.

He probably should’ve considered it the night before (infection was more deadly that any wound on its own could be), but he had been exhausted - certainly too tired to stumble to the well on the opposite side of town to clean the injury out. A sharp stabbing as he tried to raise himself any further hammered home the point that he really should’ve anyway. 

The feverish heat emanating from his entire body was the final nail in the coffin; he collapsed back onto his back with a little groan of pain. 

Like that, he drifted through empty space, mind white and blank save for periodic, bright shocks of pain. The cool press of the pavement on his back was as much a relief as it was a horrible attack on his aching body, the only solid thing in the entire world. He briefly remembered having somewhere to be, but his eyes had already slipped closed before he bothered to chase the thought. 

*****

He woke up to an incessant prodding to his shoulder, accompanied by a heavily accented string of sounds that eventually became words the longer he listened to them. 

“Stop _poking_ him, Tommy,” a voice hissed, and Techno very reluctantly peeled his eyes open. 

“Do you have a better idea?” Tommy shot back, too loudly. 

“Wass’at?” He mumbled blearily, barely hitting the minimum requirement of coherent sounds needed to form words. Wilbur jumped, and Tommy stared at him with huge eyes that made him look very young. Seeing them there, he regretted ever pointing out his alley to Tommy.

“You missed our sparring match, so we came looking for you,” Tommy explained, quieting down a notch. “You haven’t been around in ages.” The last bit sounded sad, all quiet, and Techno felt a spark of guilt in his chest. 

“Oh,” he mumbled, closing his eyes again. “Sorry.”

“What’s _wrong_ with you, Techno? You look like a corpse, no offense,” Tommy huffed, an edge of nerves lining his tone. 

“No, seriously, are you okay, man?” Wilbur added, and Techno could imagine him wringing his hands like he did when he was worried about something. 

“‘m fine,” he slurred, except when he blinked his eyes open again, Tommy was looking at him with this incredulous expression on his face and Wilbur’s brow was furrowed. “Just a ‘lil cut on my leg,” he added, wishing they would leave him to sleep in peace, or, at the very least, stop looking at him like _that._

He blinked and suddenly Wilbur was rolling up his pant leg where the obvious tear revealed the wound, hands slow and careful as he unwrapped the loose bandage. He sucked in a breath as he took in the sight (and Techno suddenly remembered how ugly it had been), strategically placing himself in such a way that Tommy couldn’t get a good look of the thing. 

“Wil, let me see!” Tommy protested, but quickly shut up as his brothers’ grave face turned back to him. Techno wilted as the anxious pools of brown turned to him, suddenly feeling a very strange mixture of guilty and sick and on the verge of passing out all at once. “It’s all infected, Techno,” Wilbur gestured weakly at his leg, looking about as ill as Techno felt, his face all pale. “We. . . we have to get you to Phil - he’ll know what to do.” He didn’t sound completely sure of himself. 

“Wanna sleep,” he said, because he was tired and there was absolutely no way he was getting to their little shop in any time period less than a day. Besides, he doubted Phil wanted to see him after his sudden absence. Wilbur leveled him with a look that he felt even as his eyelids began to slide down on their own accord.

“I know, but you’ve gotta do one more thing before you sleep, alright? Don’t go just yet.” Tommy shook him gently as Wilbur spoke, so he forced his eyes open again, focused on the blurred edges of the two boys in front of him, and said: “okay.”

“Good, that’s great; thank you. Can you sit up?” Wilbur asked. 

He resisted the urge to tell them that he had already tried that, and instead painfully moved to prop himself up. His mouth was so dry, his arms shaking, startling, horrible pain making him whine just a little. Halfway there, they helped him with firm grips on both of his upper arms, holding him up as his vision swam. 

“Alright, alright, good. . . Now we’re going to lift you up all the way, okay? It’s going to hurt, but we’ve got you, yeah?” Wilbur muttered, and very suddenly his world lit up in a bright mirage of pain, vision whiting out as the world spun on its axis. He was going to throw up, he thought, as his stomach churned, or die, he reconsidered, as ugly, racing hurt shot through him. 

“You’re doing great, Techno, just a little while longer. . .” Wilbur was saying, and Techno realized that he was on his feet, kind of, one arm slung around each of their shoulders, Wilbur crouched awkwardly to make it easier for Tommy to help, so that Techno’s feet were barely touching the ground, not much real pressure put on the throbbing limb. They were making their way down the street, taking little aborted steps in disjointed motion that made him wish he could help more. Townspeople gawked at them as they passed; he could feel the way their eyes followed him, glued to his back. He wanted to lay back down in his alley. 

The rest of the walk was more of a blur than anything else, occasional jagged spikes of pain sending him briefly spiraling into awareness. Wilbur’s soft reassurances soothed him well enough, a stark contrast to the gaping silence from his left, where Tommy clutched him in an iron like grip. His silence was unnerving, so unlike his normal demeanor that Techno was scared to acknowledge it at all. 

“C’mon Techno, just a few more steps. . .” He blinked and they were in front of the friendly little bookshop, Tommy kicking open the door and calling out inside. He blinked again and Wilbur was sliding him down onto a soft surface, a little couch inside the living area behind the shop, just before the kitchen. Tommy was nowhere to be seen, But Techno could hear his frantic yells echoing from deeper inside the building. 

“Don’t worry, Phil’s gonna be here soon,” Wilbur was saying, voice all tight and strange. 

“Okay,” he mumbled back, laying back and recovering from the reeling of his stomach. 

There were racing footsteps, then Phil’s voice, soft and right in front of him, hands already fluttering around the wound like anxious little birds. _“Oh,_ Techno,” a whisper, then, louder: “Hey Techno, how’re you feeling? How’d this happen?”

“Fine,” he said, even though he wasn’t, and then thought for a second. “A. . . zombie clawed me up,” he tacked on the end, gesturing limply with a hand. He wondered if he could go to sleep yet, since Phil was there.

The older man’s lips were pursed, his eyebrows furrowed, his golden hair tied up in a messy ponytail that made him look tired. “It’s infected; I’m gonna have to clean it out, and after that I’m going to have to stitch it up.” His words were gentle, so Techno just nodded and leaned his head back, closing his eyes. 

There was the quiet murmur of talking, noise that he should’ve been able to comprehend but that his brain didn’t bother filtering. Then there was the angriest, shrieking pain he had ever felt in his life, the wound in his leg radiating with a terrible heat that seemed to spiral through his brain, bright kicks of colors behind his eyelids. His eyes snapped opened and an involuntary whimper escaped his lips.

“I know, I’m sorry,” Phil whispered, and the feeling came again. Techno tried to curl away from it, body working on feverish instincts, but Wilbur kept a firm grip on his legs to keep him from getting far. It burned, and he wondered if that was what being on fire felt like. 

Again and again, the flare of pain, the muttered apology, the attempted recoil. He felt like he was going to die, and, when he opened his eyes, he saw Tommy next to Wilbur, and his eyes were big and wide and fearful. A pang of guilt shot through him, spearing him in the heart; he’d never seen Tommy look like that before. It felt so wrong to see it, an expression so unnatural on the normally cheerful boy that he found himself looking away. 

“Alright, I’m going to stitch this up now, okay? You’re doing great though, Techno,” Phil told him, as Wil squeezed his hand so tight it started to hurt. (It was okay, grounding in its painful extremity, and easy to latch on to.)

“Okay,” he mumbled. “Sorry,” he added, blinking lazily in Tommy’s direction. The younger boy very suddenly and angrily wiped at his eyes, where the corners were just the tiniest bit damp, an upset scowl overtaking his features. “Shut up,” he growled, and sniffed just a little. 

Techno blinked again, letting out another soft: “sorry.”

The needle felt strange, moving in and out of his leg in slow, careful motions, always accompanied by pain and the innate sense that he wanted it _out._ He drifted in and out of consciousness as Wilbur clenched his hand and Phil glared down at the gaping claw mark, and as Tommy eventually caved, forgetting whatever he had been angry about and clutching at Techno’s arm from where he was sitting next to Wil. 

“Wilbur, could you go boil some ginger tea, please?” Phil spoke softly, and it felt suddenly horrible when the older boy let go of his hand to get up. His palm was sweaty and warm, but he was already missing the pressure when Tommy slipped his fingers between Techno’s instead. Tommy wasn’t as rough, like he was afraid Techno might break at any serious weight; compared to the way he was always wailing on Techno, it felt intrinsically wrong. There was a decisive, firm tug on the string (Techno cringed), and Phil sighed in that tired way of his. “All done, Techno. Thank you for sitting so well.”

He groaned in response, as Wilbur came in with a cup of something so pungent he could smell it from five feet away. 

“Now, I’m gonna help you sit up, so you can drink this, okay?” Phil asked, so he nodded his head in assent. Phil grabbed him by the shoulders and under his bank and heaved him to a sitting position, gentle as he could be. The world spun, the faces in front of him blending together before separating again. 

There was a cup under his nose, the scent of it making his eyes burn and water, but Wilbur was rubbing his arm with a thumb now, and Tommy was still grasping his hand so carefully, and Phil was looking at him all drained and sad and worried (and Techno suddenly realized how he’d barged in and ruined the poor guys’ night), so he obediently opened his mouth and drank down some of the liquid. 

It was hot, burning on the way down his throat, and tasted about as good as he’d expected. He just barely managed to control his gag reflex, but eventually Phil had coaxed the whole concoction down, and they all sat there exhaustedly, breathing together. 

“How are you feeling?” Phil asked. 

“Great,” Techno croaked out, and then thought that maybe that was a bit too sarcastic. “Thanks,” he added. Then, as another afterthought: “sorry.”

Wilbur offered him some water, noticing the cracked quality of his voice, and he drank gratefully. 

Phil looked sad, shaking his head. “You don’t have to be _sorry.”_ He shook his head, continued: “C’mon, you must be tired.” He stood up, knees popping, and pulled Techno to his feet, supporting most of his weight and letting Wilbur fill in for the rest on his other side. They made their way down the hall, collectively took one look at the stairs, and continued on to the closed door at the end of the path, Tommy trailing behind them. 

Phil’s room was small and neat, and there was a tiny window that let the last of the dying light spill inside, making the whole thing feel warmer. The bed was unmade, an opened book next to the pillow. They eased him down onto the bed and he instantly melted into the cool fabric, exhaustion really finally catching up to him. 

Three pairs of eyes stared at him, the group reluctant to leave, and it suddenly struck him that he didn’t really want them to leave either. A wave of guilt flooded through him, that he had avoided them and still asked for so much, still barged in on their home and bled on their floor and made Tommy look like the world was ending. And he was exhausted, but he felt like he was dying, all alone where he was, so, ignoring the quick flash of embarrassment ( _shame,_ that he was even asking) that threatened to immobilize him, Techno reached out a shaking hand. 

For a second, no one moved, and Techno thought that maybe the gesture had been a mistake, after all; he could picture the safe distance at which he stood from his mother perfectly, the empty air between him and his father. He was six years old again and watching his brother learn to read; he had been excited to understand too, once. He was standing in the ocean and he was all alone, and the warm waves were lapping at his knees, and he was sparring and he was winning but he was never good enough either way. He was asleep, or trying to sleep, curled up on his bed mat and missing something, and holding out his hand and no one was moving. He was holding out his hand and, and, and -

And Tommy was unfreezing himself from where he had been peeking out behind Wil, sitting gingerly on the bed with that sullen look on his face. He glared down at Techno with his big, blue eyes, until Wilbur sat down next to him and wrapped an arm around his shoulder. Tommy sagged into the embrace, boneless as he let out that choking sort of breath you always did when you were trying not to cry, and as his lower lip trembled, and as real, fat tears began to slide down his face. Techno very suddenly remembered that the kid was only eleven. 

Phil was instantly in action, sitting down and hugging the two boys tightly, running a gentle hand through Tommy’s hair. A strange feeling filled his chest once again, that mix of guilt and loneliness, and the sudden thought that he was terribly all alone, even here, in a home full of people, gripped him with an iron like force, familiar. 

“You’re horrible,” Tommy wailed, and then launched himself forward and wrapped Techno in an awkward hug. “I thought - I thought - you were going to - to-” Tommy couldn’t finish his sentence; his face was wet against Techno’s shoulder. 

He was still burning and weak and so, so tired, but he had to say something, because they had helped him and he had broken Tommy somehow in return. “I didn’t think it’d get so. . .” he trailed off, losing the train of thought. “It’s been fine before. I’ve always been fine before,” he said, and met eyes with Phil, suddenly desperate for him to understand, at least. “I’m fine,” he added thickly. “Please stop crying, I’m fine.”

Tommy gripped him harder, his sobs lessening slightly but still frighteningly present. “I hate you, Techno,” he blubbered. 

_(Me too,_ Techno thought, thinking to the exhausted way Phil carried himself - carried _him_ -, and to the shell shocked expression on Wilbur’s face in the alley, and to the small hands clutching his like glass, careful, careful, _careful.)_

But then Wilbur was sliding next to him on his other side, reaching an arm over to rub Tommy’s shoulder, so that Techno was bracketed in between them both. Phil laid down next to Tommy, the bed not really big enough for four people, and there was his hand in Techno’s hair, brushing through it. 

Before he could stop them, tears were rolling down his cheeks, cutting a track through the dirt and grime. They weren’t loud like Tommy’s, only a couple of sniffles every once in a while, but they burned his chest and his face and wouldn’t stop. Tommy stiffened next to him, before clutching him tighter, and did not look up from where his face was pressed (and Techno was glad, that one less person had seen him, even if the boy could feel the shivering jolts of his breath).

_“Oh, Techno,”_ Phil whispered softly, and wiped the tears from his cheeks. Techno didn’t dare look up to meet his eyes again, closing them and pretending he was asleep or dead or dying. Even with his eyes stubbornly closed, he could feel Wilbur’s looking at him; he pictured big, sad, brown eyes. There wouldn’t be any tears in them, but the emotion would be enough to paint its own picture, powerful in its own right. Quietly, he began to hum, throat a little scratchy; Techno could feel the vibrations of his vocal cords from where he was pressed up against him. 

And it was a quiet thing, as Techno’s tears stopped falling and he drifted off into a deep sleep. It was a quiet thing as his family held him close and did the same. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! This update came a bit earlier than they normally end up being, so yay! I wrote a lot of it in my math class, which, at the very least, upped the entertainment value of algebra tenfold. Also unprompted angst!!! I feel a little evil, and a little nervous; tell me how it is if you'd like! I am not very knowledgeable in medical practices, and am not so familiar with such direct angst, so ahhhhhhhh!!!!
> 
> Also, thank you all so much for the lovely comments and feedback on this. You guys really keep me motivated and make my days! Thanks for being here! :)))


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Techno wakes up.

Techno woke up feeling sick, too hot and too cold and too sweaty, somehow all at once. His leg pulsed with an aching hurt and his body shook for no reason at all and his head swam. He tried to move (he didn’t know where he _was)_ before he suddenly became aware of the very warm weight to his right. 

That couldn’t be right, he thought, because he slept alone in his corner of the room, where nobody bothered him until it was time for morning training. It was never cold, really, down by the southern seas, but there was never any weight that wasn’t his own. 

The longer he laid there confused about it, the more the thin arms clutching his waist became familiar, and the more he recognized the wayward limb strewn across his leg. _Tommy._

Of course, he wasn’t in the town by the southern seas at all; there were no fields of crops or boats at the docks, and he was sleeping in an actual bed. 

He forced himself to blink awake, staring blearily at Tommy, wondering why the kid was holding him so tightly. The events of the last night filtered back to him in small; bursts and quick flashes - getting dragged to the shop (people _looking_ at him), Phil’s face as he had come running (Wilbur’s face, too, and Tommy’s - all of them), cleaning the wound and wrapping it up and holding out his hands (embarrassing, oh gods) and crying (even worse) and then being held, even though he was too hot, so hot, he was -

He was burning alive. 

Phil and Wilbur were gone, a quick glance out the window revealing it to be well past noon. He had to get up, for, for - something (he was having trouble focusing on anything but sickening mortification and the rolling of his stomach).

Techno’s fingers shook as he tried to peel Tommy off of him; the whole process was just about enough to make him give up entirely, as Tommy subconsciously clung to him tighter. Suddenly, not having the energy to bother, he rolled away, forgetting his leg until a blast of blinding pain shot through his body. 

He hit the floor ungracefully, a little yelp escaping his lips as he landed on his side. Tommy snorted and groaned, and Techno resolutely rolled onto his back and didn’t move. 

“‘Echno?” Tommy mumbled, still sounding half asleep, and Techno could barely hear him over the pounding in his ears. He was still boiling, melting right through the floor. 

“Tommy? I heard a thump; are you guys oka-” Wilbur trailed off as he came through the open door, immediately spotting Techno on the floor. “Techno!” He cried, and Techno wanted to roll right under the bed and hide forever. 

Instead, he groaned, closing his eyes as Wilbur rushed to kneel beside him. There was a blatant concern in his face that made Techno want to curl up into a ball, away from the worry. From his vantage point on the floor, he could make out Tommy rising from his side of the bed, looking nearly wide awake already. 

“Did you fall? Are you okay?” Wilbur asked, voice tinged with a horrible anxious edge, but also sharp, insisting nothing but complete honestly from Techno. 

“I’m fine,” he mumbled, voice cracking and breaking, scratching and clawing his throat on the way out. “Just a little hot,” he added, somewhat sheepishly, as Wilbur gave him a disbelieving sort of glare. He didn’t mention the pain shooting through his leg. 

“That’s the fever talking,” Wil finally allowed, helping Techno up with a careful tug and a guiding hand on the small of his back. The world spun for a minute, not especially helped by the sudden appearance of Tommy, moving jerkily in Techno’ line of sight from his perch on the bed. 

“Techno! How the fuck did you end up on the floor?” Tommy exclaimed, although it was strange in the relatively normal volume of the question. The kid wasn’t even screaming, brows furrowed in a way entirely unlike him, almost pensive in nature. 

“You were trying to strangle me in my sleep,” Techno responded, when his head stopped feeling like someone had stomped on it repeatedly, although his voice still grated and scraped on its way out.

Ignoring the comment, Tommy turned to Wilbur with a sudden smile spreading across his face, lighting up his eyes and erasing his previous expression in an instant. “Wilbur! He’s normal again!” Wilbur indulged him with a bright smile back, the worried lines of his face melting just a little with the action. 

“Normal?” Techno muttered quietly, incredulous.

“You were delirious for a little while; you kept rambling about nonsense,” Wilbur explained, carefully, and Techno swallowed roughly. 

“How long?” His throat went dryer than it already was. “What did I say?”

Wilbur’s smile tightened, eyes flickering, looking anywhere but Techno’s face. Finally, he settled his gaze on where their hands were still loosely clasped. “Around three days.” He spoke quietly, pausing to suck in a breath before continuing. “And nothing specific - like I said, most of it didn’t make any sense.” 

Techno knew how to spot a lie when he saw one, but he didn’t say anything as Wilbur helped him back up onto the bed. Because he also knew to spot the way Tommy’s shoulders were squared, the way Wilbur was slumping into himself. Even if it ate away at him, he wouldn’t force them to tell him, when they both looked like they did, twin expressions of anxiety and something else on their faces. 

(Tommy looked just like Wilbur, in the way they both pinched their brows and twisted their lips and looked like a kicked puppy. The younger boy must’ve picked up on his expressions growing up, Techno realized, and thought that it was almost sweet.)

Wilbur settled a thin blanket over his legs, fluttering around like a mother hen with its head cut off, hands moving too fast for Techno’s brain to bother keeping track of them. He was grateful when a cup of cool water was raised to his lips, drinking greedily as Wilbur tilted the cup; it was only a little embarrassing, with the soothing remedy on his throat distracting him from the feeling. Tommy bounced next to him, grinning as Techno huffed and tried to escape the damp cloth Wilbur was shoving in his face. 

“Why the hell were you sleeping in the middle of the day?” He asked Tommy, elbowing Wilbur gently in the nose as the older boy persisted. 

Tommy immediately sputtered, face igniting a bright, brilliant red as his eyes flitted from the bed to the window to the door and back. “Uh. . .”

“Well, you see,” Wilbur leaned in, conspiratorial, eyes gleaming, “Tommy’s been a little clingy these past few days.” He whispered the last part, like Tommy wasn’t in hearing distance regardless, face splitting into a mirthful grin as the boy shrieked in protest. 

“I was _not!_ I was not _clingy!_ Techno, you’ve got to believe me; tell Wilbur he’s a bitch!” Tommy yelled, shoving Wilbur from over Techno’s body. The older boy easily evaded, using his longer limbs to his advantage. 

“I’m not sure I believe you, Tommy; you seem a little defensive,” he crooked an eyebrow at Tommy, who turned to him, eyebrows quirking in quick rage and embarrassment. 

_“Techno,_ you bitch! How could you betray me like this?” Tommy lamented, falling backwards with a dramatic flop. 

Techno snorted, turning back to Wil, who was watching with a soft smile on his face. It made him look warmer, Techno noted - much better than the worried lines that he had worn earlier. “Also, you’re a bitch,” he added, deadpan, to the older boy, who choked on a sudden laugh as Tommy cheered from where he had collapsed. 

Wilbur, however, just used the opportunity to shove the wet towel onto Techno’s forehead while he was distracted with Tommy, snorting as he rose to his feet. “I’m gonna go tell Phil you’re awake. Tommy, don’t kill Techno while I’m gone, got it?” Tommy stuck his tongue out at Wilbur’s retreating back, rising from where half his body was hanging off the bed. 

“What a bitch,” he grumbled, more to himself than anything, curling his legs underneath himself to sit next to Techno. “I’m the paragon of responsible health care.” 

He couldn’t help the small laugh that escaped his lips at that, even when Tommy turned to glare at him. It was strangely nice to be glared at again, when he remembered how Tommy’s face had fallen and twisted the last time he’d seen the kid. 

A pang of guilt suddenly stabbed into his chest, horribly close to his heart, and he looked down at his hands as Tommy started to rant, familiar voice filling the room with all its lilts and dips and cracks. 

“Tommy?” He interrupted, voice hesitant, and so quiet that he was surprised Tommy managed to hear him at all. 

The kid just looked at him, head tilted, mouth half open like he was about to launch himself right back into listing off his merits as a professional doctor. His face had a sallow sort of paleness that Techno hadn’t noticed until just then, dark bags lining under his eyes like a strange raccoon - the same ones Wilbur had carried silently when he had come into the room. Techno had done that, somehow; hurt them even when he hadn’t been trying to. 

Silently, carefully, he lifted his arms in an invitation, and tried to ignore the way Tommy’s eyes went big and watery, like he might burst into tears. Tommy launched himself into Techno, careful not to hit his legs (not so careful with his entire diaphragm), curling into Techno as he latched on. He had never been a very physically affectionate person, but Techno gripped him tightly, burying his face in the kid’s hair, and let himself lean into the embrace. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, stiffly, and Tommy sniffled just a little. 

“You don’t have to be sorry,” Tommy said, sounding just as stilted and vaguely angry, and it suddenly clicked that maybe the two of them were more similar than he ever gave credit for. Wilbur and Phil were poets in their own rights, good with verbal words and expressing emotion as easily as they breathed; he and Tommy would forever be floundering, unsure of how to ask for what they wanted and needed in any way that mattered. False bravado didn’t count, when it was Tommy, eleven and trembling in his arms, whispering, quieter than Techno had ever heard him: “I’m just glad you’re okay.”

They didn’t let go of each other until there was a gentle knocking on the door, which Wil had left half closed behind him. Phil stood in the doorway, looking at them with a soft look in his eyes, mouth upturned in a sad little smile. Tommy didn’t bolt away from him, instead slowly pulling himself away from the embrace, giving Techno a smile that, unbelievably, reached his eyes, before clambering off the bed. 

“Speak a word of this to Wilbur and I’ll kill you in your sleep, old man,” he grumbled at Phil as he passed through the door, and Techno almost choked on his breath at the horrible juxtaposition of the whole situation. Phil just laughed heartily and nodded, closing the door as he entered fully. 

He carried a small plate of food and a cup of something that reeked like every herb from the garden, setting them down on the bedside table. 

“Hey, Techno. How are you feeling, kid?” Phil asked softly, settling into the chair that Wilbur had pulled up next to the bed. He looked tired, Techno noted with a frown. 

He considered the question, his leg twinging uncomfortably at the reminder that he was in pain. It didn’t feel particularly nice, but he didn’t think there was anything Phil could do about that regardless. The heat, maybe, could be helped, he thought with a wince as sweat slid down the back of his neck and stuck his shirt to his skin. 

“Fine,” he answered simply. 

“Yeah? It looks like your fever’s broken, at least,” Phil said, reaching out to touch the back of his hand to Techno’s forehead. He couldn’t help but lean into the cool touch, reveling in the way it soothed the way his skin seemed to be trying to melt itself off his bones. “Still high, but I have some tea for you to drink that should help.”

Phil offered him the steaming cup with a stilted smile, which became a little more natural when Techno wrinkled his nose at the pungent odor emanating from the concoction. “It’ll help, I promise,” he laughed, so Techno sucked it up and took a big sip, wincing as the warm liquid wormed its way down his throat, struggling not to gag the whole time. 

By the third sip, his hands were shaking too much to keep a steady grip on the cup, more of the tea ending up split down the front of his shirt than down his throat, so Phil took it and held it like Wilbur had with the water, endlessly patient as he choked it down. 

“Ew,” he deadpanned, when he had finally finished, and Phil lit up in bright laughter that made his eyes scrunch in wrinkles at the corners. 

“Alright, next order of business,” Phil said, dusting off his hands as he spoke, “how’s the leg feeling, mate?”

“Fine,” Techno said, again, sticking with the not quite lie that it was. 

Phil tilted his head like he didn’t quite believe it, but offered a comforting smile anyway. “I’m gonna check it over real quick, make sure everything’s still healing up alright, if that’s okay?”

He merely shrugged, figuring there wasn’t really a way out of it. 

The blanket was folded over neatly, revealing the lower half of his body. His pants were cut at the knee of his left leg, where the offensive wound sat, covered in a thin layer of bandages, only a little stained with dark blood. Phil was careful as he peeled back the cloth, and Techno pretended that he wasn’t holding his breath as the source of his aching was revealed to the open air. 

An ugly, jagged line cut across his skin, no longer red at the edges or leaking disgustingly yellow substance, but horribly present regardless. Five thick, black stitches were sewn into the flesh, holding him together, and his body pulsed in discomfort at the memory of a needle pulling and yanking its way under flesh. It was _terrible,_ he thought, as Phil prodded it with gentle fingers, turning it and carefully inspecting his handiwork. 

It was so horrible that his breath shook, because it had been entirely his _fault._ Something forever emblazoned onto his skin to remind him of his stupidity; the mistake that had landed him where he was, taking so much from the people he was closest too. If he had bothered to clean the thing out, like he knew he should’ve - if he hadn’t been so stupid - then he would’ve been fine and no one would have to look at him like the world was ending. 

“I should be able to take the stitches out within the next week, I think,” Phil told him, seeming pleased with the wound’s progress, although his smile faded the second he turned his gaze upwards. “What’s wrong, Techno?”

Techno couldn’t find it in himself to say anything, eyes glued to the way his flesh curled and puckered and whined with pain. It would scar like that, ugly and painful and embarrassing. Phil’s eyes followed Techno’s, and the man stiffened with a little “oh.” 

“Do you not like looking at it?” He asked, leaning forward in his chair so that he interrupted Techno’s line of sight slightly. Techno nodded, jerkily. 

Phil looked hesitant when he spoke again, tentatively gripping Techno’s closest hand in one of his own. “Why not, Techno?”

He sucked in a shuddering breath, eyes flitting to meet Phil’s for a split second. “It’ll be there forever. It’s _ugly.”_ He gasped out, almost embarrassed at the childish formation of the sentences, at the way he felt so upset over nothing at all. (He already had scars; he didn’t know why this one was so different, just because it was bigger.)

_“Oh.”_ Phil was quiet, and Techno focused on the way his face contorted in some mix of emotions, green eyes shining with conflict before suddenly steeling in fiery determination. “Scars are easy to hate, and it takes time, but they’re nothing to be ashamed of, Techno.”

Techno stared at him, silent, until Phil pulled his knees up to his chest with a couple little pops and cracks. “Trust me, I know a thing or two about scars,” he said, an air of levity to his voice that didn’t quite match the way his hands minutely trembled in rolling up his pant legs. 

And Techno sucked in a breath, because the skin on his ankles and calves was mottled and discolored with burn scars, pock marked and slightly raised. It was a swirl of reds and pinks and purples, mixed into a tone of flesh that stood out from the rest of him horribly. 

“I told you so,” Phil laughed, and Techno’s eyes snapped back up to his face, which was not quite embarrassed. “If anyone has ugly scars, it’s me, kid.”

“They’re not,” he found himself saying, almost against his will, and it was true at the same moment it wasn’t. 

“Well, I was getting there,” Phil said with a small laugh, and his eyes were warm and sad when Techno met them again. “They’re only ugly until you come to terms with them, and then they’re just another part of you. A story to tell, that makes you stronger, because you survived it.”

“How’d you burn your legs?” He asked quietly, curiosity outweighing his shame for prying. 

Phil was silent for a minute, and Techno thought that maybe he had overstepped a boundary, when the man’s voice once again filled the room. “You’ve heard of the ender dragon?”

Techno’s head whipped back to look up at the man, eyes narrowed as Phil’s face split into a bright grin. “You’re lying.”

“Nope! Floating islands, huge obsidian towers, endermen _everywhere_ \- and the dragon, of course. She was beautiful, and _mean_ too. Dragon’s breath got my legs real good.” Phil finished his story with absolutely no flourish at all, grinning as he took in Techno’s disbelieving face. He hadn’t described anything that couldn’t be taken from books and ancient warriors, but there was something in the way his lips twitched that made Techno want to believe him. And the scars matched; he could almost imagine Phil, shoulders squared against a dragon five times his size, fire licking at his legs. 

“Really?” He tried again, weakly, and Phil laughed. 

“Wil and Tommy didn’t believe me either, when I told them.”

And, when he thought about it, Phil did know a lot about fighting, always helping Tommy and him with their stances and techniques. He had told Techno, once, that he could teach him how to shoot a bow properly, if he ever wanted, and had promised Tommy the introduction of shields into their spars sooner or later. He seemed so mellow and calm, though, that Techno’s brain was having trouble reconciling the two images of Phil he’d been given. 

“I didn’t think the ender dragon existed,” he said, instead of voicing any of that. 

“Oh well, that’s okay, too. I’ll have to tell you the whole story later.” He moved to put his feet on the ground again, leaning forward and grasping Techno’s hands tightly in his own. “But my point still stands. Do you understand it a little better now?”

“Yes,” he answered, carefully, after thinking for a second, and Phil’s face lit up in a bright smile. 

“One day, you won’t think it’s anything at all, but another memory. One day, you’ll whisper it in stories and kids will look at you and wonder if you’re telling the truth - that’s how fantastic it’ll seem.” And with that, he turned back towards the wound and began to wrap it with clean bandages, hands gentle and kind on burning skin. Techno didn’t turn away from the last glimpses of black stitches and ugly raised skin, and he didn’t choke on the exhale as they disappeared. 

“Phil?” He asked, unsure, and the man’s hands paused in their task. “Thanks.”

The hands resumed, and, from his angle, Techno could just barely see the way Phil’s cheeks rose in a smile. “Any time, mate.”

“Now, I brought bread and soup; I wasn’t sure what you’d be able to stomach.” He said, turning and gesturing to the bowl and plate on the bedside table when he had finished hovering over the wound. Techno’s stomach let out an inhuman growl at the sudden reminder of food, and his face flushed a bright scarlet red at Phil’s chuckle. 

“We tried to feed you when you woke each day, but it didn’t really take,” Phil explained, concern seeping into his voice as he passed Techno a spoon. 

Techno paused, spoonful of lukewarm broth frozen in the air as he considered. Wilbur and Tommy weren’t going to tell him anything about it, he was sure, but Phil might, with his simple sort of empathetic honesty. 

“What did I say, when I was feverish?” He asked, words almost too fast to really understand, before promptly shoving the spoon in his mouth as an excuse not to repeat himself. 

Phil’s brow furrowed, face turning all upset and conflicted again, although not closed off. Maybe he shouldn’t have asked, he thought, and his stomach churned uncomfortably, nearly urging him to set aside the food entirely. 

“You mentioned your. . . old family; didn’t seem too happy about being where you were. Didn’t seem like good memories.” Phil finally settled on, fingers tapping anxiously against the bed frame. It was horribly vague, nothing more than he would’ve guessed from Wilbur, but even the smallest confirmation sent Techno spiraling down a hallway lined with doors, each one a different time and place; ones where he was curled up all alone or swimming too deep into the ocean or crying as blood roared in his ears. His lungs stuttered and his throat closed up, at the idea that they had all seen him, so strange and weak and small. 

“Sorry,” he told Phil, and the spoon shook in his sweaty hand. 

“Nothing to be sorry about, mate. Everyone has things like that, and no one’s gonna say anything about it. They know better, even _Tommy,_ unbelievably,” the older man joked, and Techno let his lip quirk upwards for just a second. 

“And, if you don’t wanna talk about it, that’s fine. I just want you to know that whoever did shouldn’t have hurt you, and that I’m here for you if you need it, whenever. I don’t know the half of it, and I don’t have to, just as long as you know that,” Phil finished, staring into his eyes with so much sincerity that he almost shied away. It was almost too kind, too considerate of everything and anything; Techno half expected him to rescind the offer immediately, but Phil only passed him a piece of bread, curling Techno’s fingers around it with a gentle hand. 

“I. . .” He stared down at the bread in his hand, feeling suddenly warm in a way completely unrelated to his lingering fever. _“Thank you.”_

Before anymore could be said, the door exploded inwards with a violent burst of motion, Tommy tumbling into the room with all the grace of a newborn lamb. Wilbur trailed behind him, struggling to carry three plates of food at once, shrieking at the way the door swung back at him from the momentum of Tommy’s entrance. 

“Tommy, you’re gonna make me drop the food!” He yelled, nearly losing a plate as he sidestepped one of the younger boy’s wayward limbs. 

“Hey don’t go pinning your gangly ass bitch limbs on me! I am a completely innocent party here!” Tommy protested, crossing his arms with an angry glare. 

Wilbur simply scoffed, pushing further into the room and settling his plates on the small dresser in the corner. “I made dinner, so I figured we could all eat in here with Techno,” he explained with a smile, taking two plates and passing one to Phil before pulling up a chair on the other side of the bed. 

_“We_ made dinner,” Tommy muttered, not quite under his breath, and grabbed his own food. He promptly nearly tipped the entire thing onto the bed as he clambered up next to Techno. 

“That was very nice of you, boys,” Phil hummed. 

And so Wilbur teased Tommy’s “definitely not burnt” chicken and Tommy cursed him and his entire family, the two of them bickering until Phil scolded them both exasperatedly. And so Wilbur hummed and Phil talked about the weird customers he’d missed in the book shop and Tommy choked and hacked for a full three minutes when a chunk of carrot went down the wrong way. And so Techno smiled and ate and didn’t even notice the steady way his hands gripped the spoon. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AHHH HELLO!!!! Sorry as always for the long wait between chapters; life loves to get in the way of wholesome found family dynamics, I guess. This one is mostly dialogue, so this is a little scary for me!!! You'll have to let me know how I did down below, if you'd like to. Thank you as always for the lovely comments; I cherish them all <3 <3 <3 You guys are really too sweet :) Anyway, hope you enjoy this one and that you're all having lovely days/nights!!! :))))) Thank you for reading <3

**Author's Note:**

> Hey; thanks for reading! I read a bunch of Found Family AUs with Sleepy Bois Inc (and Tommy, of course) that made me happy; found family dynamics are my jam! Of course, there will be no shipping in this at all and I will take it down if anyone featured in it has serious problems with appearing in fanfiction. Also sorry the first chapter is so short!


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